


Time Will Tell

by tzingfung



Series: Time Will Tell [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 1950s, Alcohol, Ancient Rome, Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Historical, M/M, Pining, Pre-Kerberos Mission, S2 Ep1 inspired, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Victorian, Violence, World War I, mentions of smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:39:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 54,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzingfung/pseuds/tzingfung
Summary: What if fate was telling him something? Being torn and ripped far away from each other again and again. Will there be a time when Keith would fail to see Shiro once and for all, and that Shiro would forget him for good?





	1. Greasers vs. Jocks

**Author's Note:**

> Don't you just love it when AO3 breaks down while you took forever in an attempt to publish something?
> 
> Anyway, I have been meaning to write this incredulous idea up for a while, then the spectacular S2 arrived and lo and behold it was phenomenal, no surprise there. It had catered so well with my idea that as soon as I watched episode 1 I had to finally write this piece. I took a little more time than necessary to publish (not just because of errors thanks to this site) as I felt a little overwhelmed by the amount of great sheith writing that's already out there and there's the fact I haven't published a written piece to the public since 2006. Heh.
> 
> So, I hope you join me to the end of this fic, it's all laid out already in my mind, and oh boy, what a journey!
> 
> As Slav says, "this would all happen in another reality."

_He probably felt it, within the Galaxy’s touch, that we were made as one. Cut from the same cloth, to be tested against fate to see if we would make it out alive, whole and well. He probably knew my ever-growing feelings towards him bloomed within his reach before I felt such a spectacle myself. He probably watched as I unravelled myself before him, amazed at his soft touch, gulping down his beauty as he smiles at me. And yet, he probably knew why Destiny broke us apart, again and again, that ruthless mistress that always caught us off guard, and maybe that’s why I could never see myself happy with him again. Maybe that's why we were not meant to be, to begin with._

 

_Patience yields focus._

 

That was the first thought that ripped through Keith’s mind.

They’ve been through a lot now, through thick and thin, as a team, as  _Voltron_. But here he was screeching under his uncontrollable depths as his precious red lion revolted against him, took itself into the tide of the vortex, a washed up mix of an epiphany, though they didn’t know  _that_ yet. This beast liked to wrestle them into a game, a game they felt no way out of, a whirlpool spinning wondrously but mechanically around them attempting to flush them out as if they were some nasty toxins ridiculing its body.

Keith could barely hear the crackling of the comms. It threw distorted voices to and fro from the cylinder walls of the lion. He could just make out Allura and Coran’s sheer amount of panic as they attempted to steer all of them to safety, though a lot of it was washed with the influx of screams and agony from the others. He wished he could do better, he felt helpless, pulled at the seams, like a lot of times when it came to the people he cared about, always seeming to be just that little bit out of reach. When they were desperately in need calling his name and he was just there watching on the sidelines letting it cascade, crumbling and falling in front of him. He just  _watches_.   
Though he tried to keep those intrusive thoughts out of reach, there it was in plain painful sight now, just enough to blind his good soul of instincts and know-how to come up with a way to get them all the hell out of there.

“-ere’s no time, they’ll be ripped to pieces!” Keith hears Allura’s ear-splitting shriek as she’s tossed recklessly to the ground through the ship’s havoc and mayhem.

“Princess! What do we do now?!” Coran was wiry, on the verge of a breakdown that could help no one much less himself, he sounded close to berserk, even.

Keith felt sweat pulsating itself down his forehead, trickling cold tendrils before swatting it away. He veered his lion to the right, as soon as he did so it protested and shot them back to the left. The sensation sent burning churns through Keith’s stomach, he suddenly felt a little more of an endearing empathy for Hunk’s ever so sensitive insides.

It was sudden. A sound that ripped itself between the centermost of Keith’s chest and vibrated its way through the atmosphere amongst them. A blurring sound of time splitting itself in half. Confusion only the small aftermath and background noise playing its part.

Keith felt grit build in the uppermost of his throat, dry and insulating, he gulped keen to rid of any excess discomfort though without success. He didn’t know how much left he could handle in this situation, to stay in control, to release in one manner of defeat. There were screams everywhere, from the others, from himself. His comms went wild. As did his mind. It provoked him in more ways than it did with any enemy they had come across as of yet. The cry for help from those you care about, surrounding you. When you had nothing at your disposal to help them.

“Fuck!” Keith felt his whole lion thrust itself close to the edge of the vortex.

All hope in staying put was now out of the window.   
He suddenly smashed his head hard against the console in front of him as he rammed in plausible ways to get back in control. Feeling the tremble of his fingertips smear blood across his vision before the accumulating sensation of one big grooming throb darkened his mind. He looked for an opening amid the swirling lions and the static of internal electricity of the whirling pit. He swore under his breath, now blinded by fear and frustration. This is not how he wanted it all to go, not how  _he_  wanted to go, not like this. No way, no how.

He knew there was nothing to it, he did what he could do. Pressing all the buttons he knew he should press, pulling all the levers that in the emergency needed to be tugged upon but nothing.   
Nada. Zilch.

But then as if the vortex itself could sense his emotional defeat, Keith was flung out of reach. Just like that as if he was a bug on a windscreen. He was nothing to this catastrophic cesspool, it was just as he felt about himself a lot of the time. He screeches as he reached the pull and tug of the screaming walls that were circulating the vortex, it tore his throat raw, the expanse of his screaming, blood settled deep into his throat, making his cries for help merge into gurgling nothingness. A useless animal cry, waiting to be eaten.

Through it all, he could hear  _him_ , through it all, he could hear the tangling beat of syllables that danced around in the air as if caught in a tin and started to be rattled.   
He could hear  _Shiro_.

“Keith!”

He was calling him. A sailor lost out at sea.

Before the total eclipse of the buckling fall of his lion, he saw the blurring rush of a large black blob follow suit. It  _had_  to be Shiro, he could only hope it was, a desperate fleeting feeling dug deep into his soul, cruel and mindless and certainly selfish, he needn't want Shiro to follow the same fate he will be having, and yet here he was hoping, and praying even, that he does so.

Being sucked and pulled and flung and spat out in all sorts of direction, the gravitational pull started to drag them down to whatever goddamn hell the universe wanted them to be in next. After all  _It_  was in charge.

Keith spotted something,  a something that formed a shape of a sphere concocted with oranges and reds and the dullest whites, blazing like the sun though instead of fire, it was full of dry sandy dunes and sparse pitiful skeletal foliage.

Keith rumbles to an emergency stop in a huge cavern that teetered itself out of the clouds which swarmed the planet’s atmosphere.

“Dammit!”

He felt like coughing up his whole insides, the throwing of his whole body to and fro from the other side of the galaxy was entirely something else, no human body would like to comprehend much less experience. He urgently fingered at some buttons around the desk, knowing before telling that Red was about to shut down completely.

 _Of course, he is_ , he thought to himself, resolute and feeling lonelier than ever.

_Of course, of all times, you’d want to break down now, while leaving me alone, feeling helpless and pointless on whatever planet we’re on!_

He closed his eyes, feeling a headache form and ramify in the midst of his mind. He hated this, who wouldn’t hate this? But goddamn he couldn’t help but excrement how much he  _hated this._

After a self-conflicting eternal breakdown of a century, he sighed, patting remorsefully at the console that sat quietly in front of him before telling Red, “You just rest up now, alright?”

He felt for Red, feeling the sympathy of the huge mechanic lion taking most of the damage from the tugging to the piercing and flushing of the Galaxy’s own giant ass drain. Keith owed a lot to this lion, he wouldn't have gotten this far without the big guy.

Something glinted out of the large cracking windscreen but Keith couldn’t quite catch what. All that he could find was the sturdy mass of premature foggy air looking sinister and watchful as if waiting to prey on him.

The whole planet was looking pretty mysteriously quiet and deserted, as far as he could tell, it felt  _off._ He knew something was up, which was a sure fire sign that he should either stay and get eaten up alive by whatever was eyeing him from afar - but not so far - earlier or get the hell out of there where he had a better chance of running and hiding where there was a little more hope for survival at the very least.

He chose the latter.

Keith jogged through to the outside of his ride.

He felt the air's density, snuggling tight between the nooks and crannies his whole body much like it was holding him tightly and saying  _come closer_.   
Feeling slightly cautious now he edged towards the mouth of the cave, knowing full well if he got any closer something might jump out and snatch him up. Just like that.

“Shiro?” He remembered him crashing through to the planet’s atmosphere with him. It almost pushed him off his mark, he almost sprinted, to god know’s where but he felt anywhere could be better than there. Anywhere was better when you're alongside Shiro.

“SHIRO?!” He tested the air once more. Looking around he started to feel the panic rise into the air he was breathing, making every inhale painful and hitched. He didn’t want to think about it, more importantly, there was hope, there was _Shiro_. Shiro who followed him there, Shiro who followed him everywhere. He had to be somewhere out there in the red dunes.

Nothing could prick up his fear more when he could not hear a single response back. Not even the tickling cry from an animal pecking away at a famished tree.

“ _Shiro_ …?”

Suddenly, everything seemed a little less clear, he suspected it was the fog, the fog that drenched so much of his vision, that it melted his mind into one solid mass of darkness, until, until… it was enough to make him feel the soft red sand caress his bruised cheek and everything was silent.

It was cold and his unconscious state had one last clinging thought.

 

_I will find you._

 

 _Have Love, Will Travel_  echoed a milling upbeat hum into its way to Keith’s consciousness. He rubbed his eyes, feeling rough and rugged. There was rubble glued to hands as he sat up on the concrete road. As his vision started to peak, he eyed the dazzling and marvellous large pink and purple fluorescent architecture that made its landscape before him. Busybodies of girls on rollerskates ripping and skittering past him to the cars that were laid by the drive-thru just outside of the building.

It labelled itself just as “The Diner” in a pink rolling font made of a flash of neon lights.

In honesty, he never felt so disoriented in his life.

“What th-”

He felt the air spreading itself thinly across him, washing his exposed skin with a breath of fresh chilling wind before he heard the tearing honks of the car blistering his eardrums. Keith bolted himself off the road, he turned just to see a man flipping his middle finger towards him and a-

“What the fuck you think you're doing,  _ankle-biter_?!” Before the man in question bolted at increasing speed on the strip of road in front of him.

Pacing himself to the only thing that he was assured made some sort of sense, he walked through the glass doors of the very pink diner. Anything to get away from his heart racing and stammering as crazy as it did then.

“Can I get you anything, Sir?”

The busy waitress asked as she heard Keith creaking at one of the bar stools behind her.  _Sh-Boom_  now took its toll through the crackling jukebox that was stationed next to the bathroom.

Keith bit down on his lip as he lazily gazed upon the menu that was left aside on the counter from the previous occupant.He wasn’t sure whether he had any cash as he hastily but casually pats himself down to not arouse suspicion. Ultimately, he came out with nothing. 

“Uh, yeah, just a coffee, maybe.” He huffed out a sigh hoping he could solve the food problem later, on queue feeling his stomach jolt and rumble like a monster growling from the very pits of his organs, slamming his guts with all its strength.

“Right away, sir!”

For a second, he was confused, he felt his own face contort. He was pretty sure he  _knew_ that voice from somewhere.

Just where…

“Allura?”

The waitress spun on her heels smoothly, a smile gleaming brightly as ever captured her face in a flattering manner.

“In the flesh, in my own diner, after all, aren’t I?”

“Your diner?” He was in disbelief, looking around, feeling slightly taken aback by the freshly laid out facts. In a way he didn’t want to believe her, it would just cause for more catastrophes and confusion, and he had just enough of that already by just waking up in a middle of nowhere. 

“It’s a family business.” She smiles as if they haven’t been passing through a dire situation in accordance to one crazy vortex to the shuddering split of the Voltron team itself.

“Y-you don’t recognise me?”

Keith was astounded by the reaction he got from such a simple but important question. She looked like she was accused of something brash.

“I know you well enough that you’re Keith, that you go to the local high school, that I brought you up for most of your life and you and your school friends usually make one hell of a racket back over there.” She points with one dirty dishrag to the table closest to the jukebox that was saddled tightly to the strip of a window overlooking the vast amounts of dull grey concrete outside.

“Oh.” He honestly didn’t know what else he could possibly say, everything she spoke of was just imaginary to him, her own facts compared to his own reality. Allura gave a concerned look, he didn’t want any pressurising questions, she obviously knew him well, but the not so  _him,_ he didn't know well enough himself.

“Where are your bathrooms?”

He already knew, of course, he already made sure there was a sort of hideout if he need be, wherever he went, he has gotten used to scouting his whole surroundings before his second footing in the place. It was just a remark to make it official that all conversations were closed. He felt a small pang as he saw she looked a little taken aback, limply, Allura points towards the side of his so-called table.

“Back there.”

Almost hurrying to get away from prying eyes, as if anyone took note of him in the first place, he skidded to a halt in a pretty well-established gleam of the men’s bathroom. Jostling a small cave of a safe haven for him, when he needed it the most. Steadying himself on one the sinks that coupled with an elongated mirror he splashed spritz of cold water rinsing off his confused and panicked face. He assessed this new measurement in the mirror just above and gaped at the scene reflecting back at him.

“What the?”

He muttered to his alternate face, though, it couldn't quite possibly be him, how could it, he was suddenly clothed in fully black clad attire. Roughed up leather jacket, black jeans that were cuffed up above the ankles, muscled up military boots that sat below the former, a rolled up at the sleeves black tee, and his usual leather gloves he grown used to- but was that he saw a dash of white prick up in the corner of his eye.  _The fuck was that_? A cold sensation sent electricity down his fingertip as he tugged at the back of his jacket. He span around to see in white chalky texture was a gang embellishment.  _Rebellious Rites_. It read.

He wondered where and when the hell this all occurred.  _Heck_ , how he supposed he changed while he was knocked out in the first place. Though, that was the least of his growing list of worries for now.

Slowly marching back out of the bathroom through to the blinding lights of the main section of the diner feeling misshapen and misplaced.

Sprinkling all the glitz and glamour back into Keith’s world. He felt nothing of it.

“Hey Keith, over here!” That stopped his speeding thoughts. He spun his head around to the source of the calling.

A rough looking bunch causing everything but the kitchen sink to steer their eyes on them. They were rowdy, crude and their laughter sent visible shivers down everyone's spines. The three stooges -minus Keith- of the local Greaser gang,  _Rebellious Rites_. Though, it was Hunk, the mightier of the three that had called him.

“ _Hunk_?”

His legs manoeuvred him to their table and off they sat together as they usually did, he supposed. He looked between the two in front of him, squinting wondering if they were faces his mind had forgotten then he switched to Hunk’s where he sat in the booth beside him yapping away at god knows what. An old face he knew well.

His orange band that always posed itself around his forehead was in jet black as if he was mourning over some loss. His hair was now slicked back forming at the nape of his neck a sort of duck’s tail. Keith wondered if he could rap his knuckles against his hair would it bounce back with a metallic sound. He had a white tank top on that chiselled into his pecs that nipped and shadowed through his shirt, a leather vest rested tightly over it.

As the other mindless couple threw Keith off with their upbeat slang that he could only predict came out of the 50s, he eyed Hunk throwing daggers, a sign he wanted to speak alone, he just wasn't getting it.

Sighing Keith asks, “Hunk, what's going on? I was ripped out of the vortex, my lion isn't working and I don't know whe-”

Hunk full on frontal faced him looking pretty much as if Keith slapped him right on his cheek.

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, slow down there. What are you even on about? Lion? Vortex? This a new comic you been reading or somethin’?”

“No, I…” Keith trailed off as he realised Hunk was no longer paying attention.  He started flicking fries at his groupies and chewed off the better parts of the ones that got thrown back his way. Keith knew he must not know anything, just like Allura, and what he could possibly do better than to play along in such a situation, for now at least, maybe to get some answers if anything.

It was only a little while later did, even more, questions unravel itself from Keith’s comprehension. A breath away from the diner was a peculiar looking shack, large and full of wonder.   
Industrial but quaint.   
Giving off a chill of a newly refreshed beginning, became a shack full of the pearly shine of vehicles just made or brought up to perfection.

The front of the industrial garage was flushed with gas pumps and flourished pavement ready to flaunt brand new polished cars that distributed itself out of Keith’s very skilful mechanical hands.

The gang showcased themselves as if they had done so hundreds of times as they slouched through the large mouth of the building taking it as their own. Keith only eased himself in as he saw the twinkle and sparkle of the dazzling vehicles that made up the room. It was a real sight and a real phenomenon, like some remote perfection, a distant island he admired from afar.

“So, Keith…”

Keith felt slightly edgy to hear the unfamiliar voice so close to him. One of the guys cornered him while he was marvelling at the large interior. He still didn't know the other two strangers’ names and he figured it’ll bite him in the ass soon enough.

“Considering this is your garage… do you think I can get like an 80% discount when I get my new  _rod_?” He gave a cheesy smirk riddling a mischievous spark somewhere in the twinkle of his eye. Keith knew this look well, he knew there were a lot of people that attempted to take advantage of his skills, of him in general. Soon enough he learnt how to fend them off. He knew when a friend wasn't really a friend. But there for more, more that Keith signed up for.

Hunk looked up from admiring a shiny red T-bird convertible that took the centre stage in the room. His head slapping fast to his left where Keith and the mystery friend were as if the conversation about cars called to him from his trance.

“Na-uh. I don't think so, man. Wasn't it just a week ago since you crashed your last  _bent eight_?”

It was through the midst of their bickering, Hunk slouching forward attempting to defend his many mechanical babies away from the mass murdering monster he called his friend. It was then that Keith noticed a tiny inkling of information that caught him off guard.

“My  _garage_?” He murmured more to himself than anyone, when did he ever have a garage and why would he anyway?

Keith almost flipped Hunk over in response, as the latter suddenly weighed his whole body down to the pits of the floor with his arm slung around his shoulders affectionately.

“Your baby is looking good these days. A real  _hottie_.”

He was thumbing at the car that he was previously revelling over. Keith took a better look at it, at the glossy cherry red paint like a fresh puckered up kiss smoothly washed the vehicle whole, how the silver of the embellishments ripped in contrast and gleamed like a wink at Keith from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, yeah it  _does_  look great.” He was chewing on his thumb now, consumed and hypnotised by many thought and the gaze of the room’s occupants.

Nothing made sense.

Maybe nothing ever will to him, but for now…

For now…

 _Let's continue to play along_.

 

It was much later now, the only change was the Greasers lingering in a tightly knit but somewhat astray circle under the ditzy lights of the meticulous garage, that Keith now accepted to call his own. Keith was nuzzling neck deep into his half empty beer bottle, as he felt some such liquid drizzle lazily down his lips as he attempted to take a sip in between laughs. By now he knew everyone by their name; Sal and Tony, who they mostly nickname as Tiny due to his astounding lack of height despite his protests. And also by now, he adjusted enough to call the place a living, a living  _what_ , he didn't know quite just yet but it was progress, and that's more than he could ask for.

Hunk shot up half way to standing before almost toppling back down to the ground breaking his full focus. Spurs of laughter darted at him in response he mocked a laugh back spitting dubious looks towards each of them before taking the rest of his mundane task more gingerly. Drinking had caught up with him and he was nothing but a clutz, a laugh machine, rinsed in a bright white light that dangled above them, framing them in a spotlight. Making them all feel a little higher than the sky that night.   
Keith certainly felt it. The euphoria of normalcy, of being drunk as hell with a bunch of friends. Isn't that what he wanted for a long time now?

Hunk had a shaky arm bestowing above them, lathering them up with a holy grail that shone brightly, glittering a dirty brown disoriented essence. They gazed upon it, worshipping the slosh of beer that threw sprinkles of itself raining on them, like holy water as Hunk’s arm swayed back and forth.

“I would like to raise our glasses to Keith’s dad.”

Keith  _was_  smiling.   
He felt galore of alcohol flow within his veins like sweet peppery poison, he was a giggling mess until that stopped as sudden as the brakes to a car, as he heard Hunk say those words sliced together.

His smile wavered caught in between a breaking point and a loose end.

But Hunk continued, who would have noticed in such a drunken state?

“Thank you for giving me such an awesome friend,” his eyes twitched towards Keith who on queue shifted in his seat, “But more importantly - _hiccup-_  a place to stay when shit turns to shit. We hope you have one badass garage up there too, old man.”

Everyone gurgled in a monotonous cheer. Keith moves his bottle up in wide eye silence, wondering if he lost his old man the same way he did back at home.

 

It was now pitch black. Keith locomoted his way to his room in the loft just above the garage. His headache marched right back into his mind in full force and he wanted nothing more than the numbing subordinated silence that came paired with slumber.

Sloppily slapping the cold beclouded walls attempting to flip the light switch, he felt a force of a fallen something before hearing the tremble of glass hitting the slab of the concrete floor. He gave up on the light completely and stared through the unbreakable darkness to pick up the photo frame, it took some squinting but he saw the softened fuzzy outline of two recognisable figures.   
All of the air was sucked from his capacity, it had a lot to do with the drowning sensation that filled the entirety of his chest.

It was himself and his father in the photo.   
He was straddling the old man around the side of his chest and had his arms slung around his neck like a little chimp. Keith’s own goofy childlike smirk burst through the sparse lighting gleaming in its all sense of rarity. When had he last smiled like that when his father was present?

Without intending to, he dragged himself along to his bed tugging his fingernails deep into the chipped wooden photo frame, closing his arms around it and clutching it close to his heart. Hearing his breathing, heeding in and out ruggedly until it slowly smoothed enough to an occasional rut. He submerged into a dreamland once more.

_A wash of greens, reds, blues and yellows spiked his dream until his whole peripheral vision splintered with perilous reality. The screams shook his imagination, the flashing bright lights obnoxious against the disorderly caterwaul. He felt his whole body jolt in one huge short movement. He could still hear Shiro’s grasping shouts for him, reaching out for him through the calling of his voice, his echoes consuming him through the shallow blackness of his mind._

He shot up in his bed, showering in perspiration and strangled with his own voice attempting to free itself from his clenched up throat.

 

The ringing of the school bell shattered any sense of peace Keith previously claimed that morning. He was sifting through the ruckus of his locker while attempting to shut out the maddening grasp of human speech elapsing each other that came with high school. That included Hunk mouthing off his other friends behind him.

He was getting pretty prissy and he knew that it was a petty and immature stance as to why.

 _It was just a **nightmare**_.

_But you know it was real, how do you get back now? They're all hurt. ALL of them!_

He slammed his locker door. It silenced any bickering that lingered behind him for a second before it sped back up to its usual pace. Keith assumed that they were adjusted to his annoyances by now.

He ran his hands through his hair that now curtained his sight, he felt heat suck into his cheeks, frustrated and flustered by his own damnations. He felt soulless and stupid.

Then he saw  _him_.

There to his right, just where his locker door had obscured his vision, was a minuscule crowd broken by familiar faces.   
_Shiro_.   
He was crazy to believe he was there, though he thought Shiro was crazier as there he was, laughing with Sendak and Zarkon. Of all people. It was a strange sight, a prickling laughter caught up in Keith’s own throat. This reality’s mindless joke to him. It was all too strange to see them all clothed in matching varsity jackets masking their muscles, breaking away their usual threat in appearance. To see  _them_  with Shiro was another story entirely that Keith didn't want to get the hang of.

“-you know what? I don't even care anymore. Come on, Keith, we’re going!”

Keith was so engrossed with Shiro’s presence, his smile that shone through the emasculating mass of students, his laughter echoed like beautiful singing chimes through the school halls dancing in the air. He ran his fingers through the rift of his hair, smoothing the snowy whites in the field of jet black that crowned his head.

Hunk sighed remorsefully and deeply as he started to now tow Keith away towards their classroom.

“Hey! Quit it!” Keith whipped back his head towards Shiro, as people that once lingered about him started to dissipate. They locked eyes, just for a second, before Keith was completely shoved in the classroom for good.

It was no secret, but Keith had always had a hard time concentrating in class.

It was such a strange atmosphere quiet and serene but deafening and blinding all the same.   
He had an excuse as to where his mind lingered for that particular hour, though.

For Keith could not stop thinking about Shiro for the whole lesson.

Shiro who also fell through the vortex’s stomach, Shiro who called for Keith as he followed him down the rabbit hole, Shiro who Keith lost and then found.

He had to have a reason as to why he was buddying up with their enemies.

Keep your enemies closer, right?

_But still…_

But still, what if like the others Keith had found so far, that Shiro couldn't remember any of it? What if Keith was on his lonesome in this new reality broken through rasps of his  _own_  reality only through his dreams, waking him in a break of sweat every night.

What if that never changes?

There was something rattling behind closed doors in Keith’s mind. He chose to tread lightly around it as it growled when he considered the slightest thought of Shiro. It was a prickly sensation that spiked and chewed off the edges of his sanity all at once. He disliked it, but not as much as he disliked the feeling that encaptured him all day, the feeling that the Black Paladin betrayed him.

He and the three other Greasers got out of Gym class later that day.  
It wasn’t a spectacular scene though as it had seemed to be a repeated action on multiple occasions, this is, of course, all down to Hunk’s word, though. As they sat on the oily watered down gloss of the floorboards, in nothing but thin layers of a white shirt they rolled their sleeves with and too short for Keith’s liking bright red shorts. He felt stimulated to get off the ground, away from lingering eyes that touched upon them longingly only to let go as Keith’s own startling stare pounce back at them. He was riled, that could have been said a lot for those two days he had already been there.

A wash of red was all Keith could see, a wash of red may just be the only thing he wanted to see. Just maybe an excuse, a let go of everything crazy that was happening around him. He shot up from the ground suddenly, so startling that it made his friends stop bickering their nonsense for a double take. His eyes were glued and framed to his goal only as he strode straight to the court where an unmissable dodgeball game was having a frenzy that lesson.

It wasn’t that he  _couldn’t_  hear the Greasers scowling him as he slithered to the centre of the room making an immaculate fool of himself, he just chose that whatever came out of their mouths meant nothing compared to the value of awestruck pain and senselessness that he was currently bathed in and  _oh boy,_  didn’t he want to let it all right out, right there and then.

“Hey!” One of the boys protested as Keith lazily but determinedly plucked the ball out of this guy's princely hands'.

As soon as he did, he shot the small orange-red sphere with such horizontal force blasting its way to the knees of his opponent on the opposite side of the court. Needless to say, it shut his partner up real quick. Keith smiled, this is the result he wanted. Full on vent through violence, when didn’t that work for him?

He blasted a few more shots, succeeding with every strike, those that were shot down on his team started to tremble with pure resolution and fear as they huddled up on the bench. He felt nothing for the game, nothing for the competition even, but he did feel everything for the fruitful force that came from pelleting a ball where it throttled in the air and smacked something real hard, in this case, someone. It was times like this, when his sobering peaked later on, that he realises his uncharacteristic episodes could even surprise himself sometimes.

The last ball slouched in his hands as soon as the game ended. It marked a small pounding sound in the back of his head, echoing the chambers of the room, as he passed the coach looking smitten as he was in mid-whistle. He couldn’t help but grin a little seeing the celebratory cry he got from his friends as he clambered into their group hug.

It wasn’t that Keith felt bad per se when the loiterings of his sceptic fear and fiery anger anguished ever so slightly when they reached their lockers afterwards, it was more of an empty shackling feeling that clambered its dead body towards the bars of his insides, rattling against Keith’s ribcage, asking to be let out. It was that he felt like nothing took a full grasp onto what he was, as of then. He was  _nothing_.

“You know, you were seriously badass out there! So unreal. Woo-wee!” Tiny tore the whistling through the strips of darkened empty halls, where the lights flickered and poured small pools of illumination, eliminating for the slightest of moments the feeling Keith was nursing deep inside himself. Even Hunk began to tug Keith’s tightly knitted crossed arms into a forced sloppy man hug. Keith tensed at first, his whole body rigid as an instinct toying with the social side of his mind, before warming up a little, feeling the small rattling deadly thing that was caving in his chest grow silent.

It was Shiro’s sudden presence that made it even more so, breaking stark against the outside world, where it was now just shadows and hushed breaths taped back behind trembling hands.

His smile faltered, Shiro’s eyes lingered elsewhere but seeing him.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later, I just need to grab something from my locker,” Keith mechanically slaps Hunk on the back in a clarification that everything was A-Okay, nothing out of the ordinary, because to him everything was unnatural and subversive.

Their wooing and cheering dragged tightly behind them as they skidded away into the thinning lights that remained in the hallway.

Keith only felt his breathing bolt, where it well rested in between his gaped lips, never letting itself out.

He took a deep breath and marched straight towards Shiro’s open locker. Shiro was lamely tipping one thing over to the next scavenging for who knows what.

Keith abruptly slammed the door shut. He was determined to look straight into Shiro’s eyes without a twinkle of weakness shadowing it. The eyes that were at present, startled as ever.  

“Shiro.” He greeted him bluntly.

“Keith.” Shiro throws back as blunt but nearly not as much malice diced into it.

Keith was almost hurt to see that Shiro was confused by Keith talking to him. He mentally slapped himself out of his stupor, reminding himself that  _he_  was the one mad at Shiro, that Shiro has forgotten him, that of all people, it should be  _him_ that should remember Keith.

There was a breath of a sentence that escaped from his pursed lips, it was almost as inaudible as the wind sifting its hands through autumn leaves.

“ _You remember me_?”

Confusion brushed Shiro’s expression that mulled over into fits of peals of laughter. It was rhythmic and solid and had always given out warmth, it had its similarities to a winter’s sun, dashing through the cold that bitterly took away the lands into its own grasp. This time it was as cold as a blizzard chopping and slicing at exposed skin leaving only frostbite and dispirited souls behind.

“We  _hate_ each other, don’t you remember?”

He treads away taking his mirthless laughter with him. Keith watches as Shiro’s figure distorts into the distance as he lingers away, getting smaller and smaller yet.

 

 

_No, no, I don’t remember._


	2. Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support so far, it really means a lot, seriously!  
> I want to dedicate this chapter to my friend, Victoria! She’s seriously amazing. She is like my Shiro in the way that she’d always pick me up when others bring me down, so thanks for always being there for me!  
> I hope you all have a great rest of the week and enjoy this chapter.

It has been a fortnight.

Two weeks.

14 days.

336 hours.

Since Keith last saw Shiro.

It wasn't that Keith wanted to keep track of the remnants of time that teetered itself away from his grasp, nor did he want to feel the dissipation of his wasted time that broke itself into a gust of dust that sprinkled the air he breathed in every time he thought those words, those words that punctured a hole somewhere in him. He didn't want to admit it was mostly aimed at his chest.

_We hate each other._

_Since_ _when?_   Since when would that in any time or any reality would happen?

But it did. There was no denying it.

And as Keith did the usual day's routine, hanging out at his garage, going to school where he’d push his limits of keeping his eyes open the longest, and lingering at the diner with the other Greasers every night, surrounded by the _rat tat tat_ of conversation coercing as if hungry to gain more than just information from those they speak with, Keith is just there gazing through it all. It was as if he was drowning under water and everyone was celebrating above the pool’s distorted surface.

It had been two whole weeks.

Two weeks of a new obtuse world.

At first, he began with scratching it, hissing at it, even attempting to rip it up with his premature screams at the blurry stages of  the crack of dawn, like it was something new in his territory. Until, the days fluttered in and out weaving against his drafted pattern, he realised it was the other way round all along. He was in _It’s_ territory whatever or whomever _It_ may be. He had no control over any of it.

And maybe that's why, once he soon gathered up such facts he proved to himself that adjusting was the only way, that adjusting was fit for survival.

The only thing he had yet to adjust to was Shiro. His friend hating him and despising him enough that his stares spit and sizzled, and apparently Keith hated him back.

As he sat in his garage working on customer’s orders one day dressed up like any other day, black oozing oil dripping thickly between his grasp, he thought he could never want to adjust to that. He didn't want to.

 

It was some time in the late winks of the afternoon where the sun had cruised high and the flakes of stardust golden shine spread itself freely through the garage’s opening. Keith was working on the dashing red beauty of his car, it shined like a fresh ripe cherry that had just been plucked. His smile could have said a lot of things, he was proud of this masterpiece before him, it was the best thing that could come out of this reality.

It was the shuffling on the smooth concrete floor that made his ears perk up and his eyes start to warm. The squeaks of their sneakers making skid marks, echoed and pounded like rusting through a dripping cave, getting louder as the noise closed in on him.

There were three sets of footfalls.

Three guys.

Keith looked up casually, just a short glance to see.

Sendak. Zarkon.

And _Shiro_.

They were wearing their usual varsity jackets and laid back posture. They rattled with rowdy shots of laughter where it escalated up down the back of Keith’s spine. Though, he continued to work on his car, he could never take a full eye off them, readying for their next move.

_What were they up to?_

Their screwy profound nature of their conversation suddenly halted as they eyed the car Keith was working on for a customer, it was presented above them where its full galore of its underbelly flaunted itself, exposed and naked for all eyes to see his handiwork.

“What's a guy gotta do to get some customer service around here?”  

Zarkon bellowed around the huge space that surrounded them making Sendak choke with laughter, and the white washes of the walls draw back with every pouncing echo thrown at them.

Keith took a deep breath, morphing his face into a stern demeanour, he reluctantly prowled towards the jocks.

He did everything he could to avoid Shiro’s eye contact that drilled through the side of his head where it pierced a tunnel into his mind, trying to read it.

As he reached them, Zarkon and Sendak snickered mockingly as they exchanged looks. He knew what was running through their thick tiny minds. It wasn't the first time he took that judgement to heart.

_This guy’s scrawny._

It was a feature he made use of, after so many years of punching his own gut detesting for, the lack of build, the lack of height, the lack of _strength_. He chose to do something about it, he spent nights in cold sweat, perspiring after a full on heated workout session. Maybe that's why he was always ready for a fight. He had something to prove.

Not only to them but himself.

“Well, you look it here…”  Sendak taunts. Keith chose to ignore him.

With a bored voice he looks between Sendak and Zarkon and does the best he could to shoot daggers through every syllable that was pronounced out of his mouth.

“What will it be?” _Hotshot_.

Keith’s own stare could match Medusa’s.

Sendak hissed at Keith’s attitude it only riled him up more, but Zarkon had a snarky smile in return and slaps Sendak on his shoulder who then pushed for a copy of his friend’s snide smirk. None of which gave off the friendly vibe it should have.

Keith saw in his peripheral, Shiro stepping back leaning into the shadows, arms folded in silence.

“Nice place you got here, _punk_.” Zarkon said the words full of smite as spittle rained down in the gap between them. His back arching, a wolf ready to bark, pounce, devour.

Keith rolled his eyes and lazily folded his arms. It only pissed Zarkon off more, his face blushing red with fiery tension and strained and pulled around his eyes.

“I'm looking for an upgrade.” He continued soft but menacing. A statement that etched in the air and wouldn't rub off.

“Oh yeah? Well, you sure do need it.”

Keith was rewarded with a hidden laugh from Shiro where he disguised it as a feigned coughing fit, making Keith only fight a smile more. Sendak on the other hand looked ready to kill Keith in one punch.

Zarkon stepped forward taking a bite at Keith, “Alrigh’ pipsqueak, you think you're funny do ya?”

Keith kept his stern presence ahead of himself. He saw movement in the corner of his eye, a shift in the shadows.

_A warning?_

“A little, yeah.”

Without time for a second to breathe, Zarkon walks towards Keith’s rod that was now drenched in the swinging sunlight, it glowed like the devil’s eye.

He kicked one of the front wheels lightly at first, warning number one, taunting only to flair Keith up more.

Keith stepped forwards only to be retracted by Sendak where the larger man stepped in the way of his clear route.

Zarkon thumbs at the vehicle while an off-looking gleam melded into his stare, puncturing through Keith’s own burning fiery gaze.

“This yours? It suits you… all girly like you.”

He ran a thick finger from its shiny polished door handle to the tip of the side mirror where he flicks at it.

“The colour of your favourite lipstick?”

Keith was raging now.

Zarkon smirks, seeing that probing got what he wanted.

He whips out his keys, deliberately taking his time as he gently plucks up a real nasty rusty one then started to make a jagged line through the freshly painted coat. He winks at Keith, as the latter attempts to leap out of Sendak’s towering grasp.

Zarkon slowly works his way scratching the red paint deeper. It bled and bled, flicks of pieces chipped away to the ground, bright red autumn leaves fluttering down. Leaving a white claw mark in its place.

“Hey, Z…”

That was Shiro. His sentence thin and weak as he hesitated to finish.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Keith interrupted with more finesse.

Sendak now had his arms around him tightly, grinning like an idiot knowing all too well that Keith wouldn't be able to escape his hold. He was restricting him enough that all he could do was attempt to push back away from his chest only for the cage to suddenly enclose around him tighter.

Zarkon slowly walked towards Sendak’s back and Keith’s head where it struck just above the former man’s shoulder, bobbing up and down as if it were a drowning man against the strong currents gasping for air.

Zarkon drinks in the anger that rouged up Keith’s cheeks and boiled his insides. He was humiliated by his own stance alone.

“Sending you a reminder.”

He gets even closer to Keith where they were only inches apart. His breath tickled and misted his face.

“-Of who is boss around here.”

He slowly retreats snapping his fingers. In an instant, Keith is dropped back to earth from Sendak’s vice where he then followed the trail of his friend’s meagre fumes.

After a beat Shiro emerges from the shadows as well and treads in their fading footsteps.

He stops for a second, looked back at Keith, who couldn't do anything to hide the agitated rasps that took control of his whole body, pumping him full of air like a human hot air balloon.  
Then before he knew it, Shiro was out into the sunlight no longer warm but a bright white light of coldness that washed both of them, chilling him until his insides were below freezing.

Keith completely loses it, he kicks at an empty paint can nearby and screams out of frustration as if to make everyone  hear his cry for help, for aid, for something, but no one came.

 

The sun was set deep now, pooling over the horizon as the Greasers yapped away eating greasy fries and thick slushy strawberry milkshakes at Allura’s Diner the next day.

Keith was overlooking the swooshing of cars that tumbled by, the people that skipped along the sidewalk and the mindless whispers that came through the window back at him.

Flashes of the day before elapsed one another, each scene again and again evading his mind. It was enough to make him usher himself out of the booth, leaving his half eaten burger and fries to dehydrate and cool in the cold air that whistled past from his empty presence.

“I heard about your car.”

Allura stated. She had been eyeing him seriously but nonchalantly all the way from the booth to the stool that stood before her. Keith let out a huff as the squealing peeled itself out of the swirling seat.

He looks up at her as she automatically laced her hands around his, a sort of comfort that only grew cold with Keith. He attempted to read her puppy dog eyes, only resulting in drowning in self-pity and shame.

He untied his scratched up hands under her soft ones and dropped his gaze to the checkered floor, scruffy as he felt.

“Yeah, well, it’s just a scratch.”

She shook her head soberly, “Still… I got something to cheer you up.”

Keith was in all honesty surprised, it wasn’t the usual response you’d get when you were in a near fight to the death the day before. Melodramatic, he knows but all the same he had to ask.

“What is it?”

She smiled back at him mischievously, her silver hair danced and bounced in waves as she swivelled her head quickly to check the clock that was behind her. She kept the answer to his question to herself and came out with a new selective statement instead.

“Meet me out back in 10, my shift will be over soon and I’ll give it you then.”

He raised an eyebrow but nodded all the same.

“Alrigh’.”

The air was starting to cool, it broke through into clouds of smoke that dotted itself out of Keith’s mouth. He had his hands slitted in the pockets of his jeans, leaning back against the cold brick wall, looking up at the watered down sky, how it resembled the colours of Hunk’s lion mingled with his own and he felt a pang in his heart though it felt distant, like a shout from afar. A repercussion.

The waft of hot dogs from the diner straddled into the air dense in his nostrils. It was quiet only broken now and again by a speeding car.

He was close to drifting off even, his mind floating away into another world, where daydreams came prosperously and serenity came second to none.

A low whistle made him plummet out of his daydream.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here.”  
  
_Sendak_.

Keith stumbled into a defensive stance, Zarkon skulked around the corner as he did so.

“Ready for round two, pipsqueak?”  
  
Keith couldn’t help but push all of Zarkon’s buttons.

“If you let me get started this time, yeah.”  
  
Zarkon squares him up, flaring his nostrils, his eyes bulging and intimidating.  
He looked like a bull seeing only red. He _was_ a bull seeing red. _The Red Paladin._

Keith could feel his bated breath punching his face with sickening warmth.

“What’s that, shortstop?”  
  
Keith took his time as each word trailed out of his mouth, he stepped closer where they were only a finger length apart.

“I’m saying.” He points a finger to Zarkon’s chest, prodding it with every beat to his heart. “If you allow me to actually fight you this time, I’ll win.”

“Oh yeah?” Sendak was the one who answered for him.

Zarkon snapped his head back to his friend, it whipped fast enough for the air to break around him. He was seething.

“QUIET.”

He looked back down at Keith, teeth fully bearing like a dog hungry for meat.

“Is that right?”

He slapped his palm hard on the brick wall beside Keith’s head making him hear ringing from far and wide. It was in the small pocket in his mind that he realised. _He was cornered_.

Without a two second wait, Keith looked at him right in the eye, smirked ever so slightly only to confuse Zarkon enough where he took the chance to knee the man in the gut and clip the back of his opponent’s thick legs.

He punched Zarkon square in the face before circling him with fists at the ready waiting for him to stand back up. 

It was fear, he pinned it down to, fear as to why he made the first move, that always sprang up into his automatic self-defence. It was little logic that came into play.  
But then the small reality that punctured and squealed inside of him made itself heard, he knew he wouldn't be the true victor in the end. Though, it was worth every short he could take.

Zarkon slowly got into a kneeling position, as he stared Keith down, wiping away a thin trail of blood that escaped the corner of his mouth. He was still smiling through it all.

But Keith just smiled back.

“Y’know… I could do this all day.”

This made the bull charge full speed into Keith’s slim torso, he wasn’t ready enough to shield the full blast of it. Now pinned down to the ground, Zarkon started beating his face, showing no mercy. He attempted to flail into rough messy kicks but Zarkon’s weight and build could have sunk the whole of his body through the gravel down to the earth’s core.

Without warning, Keith heard a very faint _I’ll grab help!_ in the distance.  
It sounded like Allura. It _had_ to be Allura, they were supposed to meet around about then but all he could really hear is the swelling pressure of each fist that made its mark on his face. The swimming blood that heated his ears.

But her bright shrilly voice was enough- to Keith’s own surprise, to make Zarkon look up, alert and cautious.

“What?”

He had fear encircling his mind, and wasn’t that one weakness to him and one advantage to Keith?

He was afraid to be witnessed, and Keith took this opportunity to flip the tables once more. He soon enough had Zarkon pinned to the ground in his place, of course it was not for long as the countered strength broke any sense of straddling. Zarkon got really pissed, as in he could have thrown a truck at Keith right there and then if it had come storming down the road behind them sort of pissed. 

He got up and slammed Keith to the ground, he stood over him, overlooking him in distaste watching Keith’s bloodied body crippled in a slump as he attempted to get up himself, though the shaking in his arms said otherwise. Keith faintly saw through the colourful splodges that danced in his sight, Zarkon waving to get backup from Sendak. He wavered in and out of consciousness, only to be pushed into reality as a full shove of kick was punctured into his back, right in the middle where the spine curved. He naturally burrowed within himself to protect his front, knowing all too well that there could be worse damage if he didn’t.

It was then that he remembered, the small switchblade he had stashed in his boot. It was tiny and probably more ineffective than he wanted it to be but he needed a boost in his game. He needed to protect himself. Anything to get a one up from Zarkon.

He curled a little deeper within himself slowly trying to run the tides of the rhythmic beats coming from behind him

One.

Two.

_A beat._

One.

Two.

He stealthily reached down towards his ankle and…

“Stop. Stop it now.”

A familiar voice broke the transitional rhythm, everyone was caught just as much as a deer was caught in a full flush of headlights.   

Shiro marched towards the two giants and broke them away from Keith’s limp tattered body. They were still smirking cruelly as they receded back into the main streets walking away giving the eye at Shiro, their friend, before turning for good.

Keith noticed Allura, awkwardly weighing from one foot to the other as she stood there looking at him sheepishly in the background.

Keith felt Shiro gingerly picking him up, a frail sack of rugged limbs, softened muscles, broken bones and a cushioning of his skin to hold it all in together, until he realised what was actually happening and soon enough swatted him away, continuing to stand fully -just about- on his own two feet, yet again feeling humiliated, second day in a row.

_Not liking this new reality._

He wasn’t looking at him when he said, “I could have taken them, you know.”

“Maybe.”  

Shiro returned, not a little bit swayed as he surveyed Keith’s wounds. He then slowly reached out to the large scratch that dragged itself from one side of his forehead to the other, before having second thoughts and brushing off the action entirely by rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Look.”

Keith couldn’t help but comply.

“I’m sorry about that.”

He wasn’t even looking at Keith in the eye as he said it.

“Really? Because I thought you said you hate me.”

Keith almost winced as soon as he allowed himself to speak, seeing the small sadness and something else swell in Shiro’s eyes before it quickly dissolved back into nothing.

He walked off brushing against Shiro as he did so.  
He eyed Allura before walking down the strangely quiet and empty street, rubbing his arm tentatively as if it would magically ease his full body pain.

At some point, a few silent paces in, Allura caught up with Keith. She pulled him back suddenly by the shoulder, attempting to make him stop in his tracks. She was out of breath and was blushing in the cheeks as she took each sharp inhale, she looked up at him, looking implacable, though, the gaze was dripping with worry.  

There in her arms, clutched too tightly, was his present. Clean, gentle and neatly wrapped.

Feeling apologetic Keith mumbled a quick apology.  

She raised an eyebrow, coughed and straightened herself out, dusting off the invisible collective dirt that accumulated on her lap as she caught her breath.

“Right, well, look, never mind all that for now.” She grasps his arm, digging her nails in deep.

_Fear_ .  
The buzzword of the day.

“I don’t know what’s with you these days. Maybe- maybe it’s to do with your father.”

Keith looked up at her in shock he couldn’t mask, Allura’s face had now been washed with regret for mentioning his father at all.

“But you got to stop. I don’t want you to get yourself killed!”

“As if you really cared.”  
  
It just slipped out. No second thought, no filter. Out it went just like that, mixed within the air with no way to call it back.

He knew that he was being a little too harsh, somehow this self-defence mechanism liked to also protect the little dignity and pride he had left.

She had fire in her eyes in protest, “Of course I do, Keith! I took you in before you were able to take care of yourself and got your own place, when you had no place to g-!”

She stopped herself knowing this was far beyond comfortable territory especially after what Keith had just been through.

“Keith. Just be careful. Please.”  
  
Keith sighed feeling sorry that he made her feel that much worry.

“I will try, Prin- Allura.”

She smiled, satisfied, for now at least, and proceeded to give the gift she had snuggled in her arms to him.

“Here.”  
  
He took it carefully, marvelling at it from all angles before looking back towards her asking, “What is it?”  
  
“Open it!”

Keith does as he was told, and feasted his eyes on an object, somewhat familiar but he could not place from where...

“A knife?”

“A _blade_. It's your father’s, he gave it to me before…”  
  
“Why would you-” leaving his gaze at the dashing blade for a second to look up at Allura.

“Because I know that even though you just told me you’ll stay out of trouble, that there’s probably more of a chance that trouble will find you.”  
  
He looked back down at the weapon, admiring how much finer and exquisitely crafted it was than his present one. He felt an all new respect for Allura.

“You’re telling me. Thanks, Allura, I mean it, thanks.”

She smiled gently, “always here to help, Keith.”

 

It wasn’t the first time Keith was hanging with the Greasers at Makeout Creek Hill. It was funny to him that the place appealed to them, because despite the noiseless wonders that no one really wanted to pay attention to in the car next door, they still found the area soothing and their own.

Keith sat beside Hunk on the latter’s beaten up car. It was obvious how many rodeos it had taken already, with its smeared and rusty exterior from drifting and skidding closely to whatever object it had bashed into timeless amount of times all throughout their bi-weekly drag races.

They were leaning back and drinking in the moonlight, Hunk’s cigarette lazily limp between his lips, chewed upon as he mumbled whispered conversations. The endless beer bottles that came towing in was all thanks to Sal’s fully loaded pockets. It was because of him that they were able to chill and forget the works of the day to the mindless cluster of stars and blinding city lights that the creek overlooked. 

They were, with no surprise to Keith, endlessly complaining about the fight he had earlier that day, for hours on end.

“This is bullshit. I’m sorry pal, I wasn’t there to beat them all up with you.”

Hunk threw punches against the air in earnest, preparing for the next round.

Sal half raised from his seat in anger, “Yeah man, just say the word I’ll come stormin’!”

The other two murmured in agreement as Keith took another swig from his beer, before wincing as the liquid laced into the mix of his cut lip, feeling it split further as he cringed.

“Ow…”

“Careful!”  
  
Hunk the ever caring friend swiped away the bottle from his grasp, while he muttered about how Keith drank too much already anyway.

He then proceeded to take a sip from his newly proclaimed bottle and as if it had been filled with all the answers they needed that night, he pointed to the starry night sky in a full comical _eureka!_ moment.

“You know what we should do?”

Everyone aside from Keith who was numbly assessing his torn up bloodied hands questioned Hunk with excitable _“What?”s_.

Keith looked up then finally catching on, vaguely interested and curious.

“I’ll show you what!”

 

It’s funny how things look entirely anew when clothed in the dark. Now the creatures of the night prowled our streets straight from our nightmares.

Where there were people now stood shadows.

Where there was laughter now had the clinging sounds of creaks and hums of mechanics and pipes.

Ergo, it felt alienating, spooky and eerie, a soundless prowl from an unknown creature from behind, ready to pounce at the four friends who all ambled around the darkened hallways of their closed school, in fear of getting caught by something that would emerge suddenly from the pitch black corners they turned to. 

Keith took Hunk to one side for a second. His drink had now clambered its way into his system, made his whole vision shake from side to side. A mini earthquake was happening before him and everyone just stood still and somber.

“Uh, Hunk, what are we doing exactly?”

“We’re cheering you up, of course!”  
  
Hunk perked a little too enthusiastically for their quiet surroundings. He slapped Keith’s back for emphasis.

Keith couldn’t help but question, “how?”

Hunk nearly missed putting a wavering finger onto Keith’s partly opened lips attempting to shush him. He was completely drunk. Though, so was Keith and so laughter was shaken out of him needlessly and unexpectedly.

“Uh-Bub Bub, Mister, don't ruin the atmosphere!”

“What atmosphere?” Stilling the air with his amused chime.

After Hunk evaluated each room they had come by, he sashayed them all into their usual empty classroom, giving them random pieces of stationery to ordinary classroom accessories.

After that, he made them line up in an orderly fashion just in front of the chalkboard. He slapped a wooden ruler into his clammy hands and the sound ricocheted back and forth from the walls, throwing off Keith’s senses entirely for a few spilling seconds.

Hunk looked authoritatively at them, walking up and down in front of their tight strict line like an army drill sergeant examining his new fresh out of the water recruits. Keith could not help but burst into fits of laughter behind his bruised up fist, biting it in attempt to calm himself down through the thicket of alcohol that branched throughout his pulsing veins.

“Your mission? To cheer Keith up. How you may ask? Through the best way we can.”

He picks up the fire extinguisher and let’s out a few puffs.

“Silent destruction.”

It was needless to say, there was nothing silent about it.

There were some roaring, loud and liberating, and there were shouts as there were slamming and battering up every inanimate object that thrown themselves into.

Keith felt his giddiness swell in him, inflate and bubble, until it came spewing out in an hyperactive state bouncing in the balls of his feet.

They all took their _so called_ weapons and started to vandalise the whole classroom in the best way four drunken friends could do, no matter how obscure.

Keith started to write some profanity on the chalkboard, uncaring as it left screeching like burning tires with each white chalk mark he produced. It was then that he had an idea.

Sloppily, he stripped one lined paper out of a notebook someone left behind from a class earlier that day, he started to scrawl just enough to make it legitimate. He could not stop smiling like a doofus as he did so.

It took a lot of effort as he rammed his new work into the recipient's locker just before he slammed his back against it and passing out on the floor, his own laughs soon a quiet hum, a lullaby to his own aridity and soberness.

At some point later he vaguely saw Hunk running off past him only too quickly having to retrace his steps. Keith felt the wind get sucked out of his gut as Hunk slapped him over his shoulder like a bag of flour, carelessly in a hurry manner as he attempted to make a run for it.

Then on queue, Keith saw a blinding dazzling light flash into his eyes.

_Aliens_ ! He thought, _it's a UFO!_

Drunken logic melted away as he heard a very human shout.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

A thought marched in the forefront of his mind, loud and crisp before passing out.

_Oops, I’m in for it_.

 

Keith was nursing a bruising headache the next morning in school, it stretched from his jaw all the way to the tip of his head, spreading itself like a glorious crown made of thorns, piercing deep enough to cut through any coherent thought that day.

He could hear his own groans cascade into uniformed echoes from behind him from his friends as they all sat in class.

The intercom screeched as it rehearsed it's usual three bell chime, it made them sink into disarray in unison.

Keith was hugging his desk tightly to his chest, throwing himself over it for life support. But not for long.

The principal's voice bellowed through the disorientating chime, it was croaky from the static and iced slowly down Keith’s spine.

He wanted to speak to all four of them, in private.

_Great_.

 

“Lucky that our caretaker knows the usual troublesome lot.” The principle spat out as soon as they made their way to his office. 

_Not really_. Keith thought through the ramming of his dislodged hungover brain.

The principle continued, “As its early and we all don't want to spend more time on this then we have to, let's keep this simple.”

He spread out his arms and locked his fingers. He watched them over his hitched glasses as he weighed his chin down onto his bony hands.

“No Dance. No date. No going near the school when the event is on.”

Groans once again lingered the air like ocean tides, washing away erosive rocks that built up between them, before the principle hushed for silence and shooed them away back to classes.

Keith didn't care for dances anyway.

He trailed the other boys back to their first class before the late bell decided to sing its song.

“Keith.”

His tracks faltered in an instant. He looked up to see Shiro at his usual spot beside his locker, dangling a piece of folded paper neatly placed between his fingers. He looked unusually sour.

Knowing he got Keith’s attention he continued to ask, “What's this?”

“Uh, what?”

Keith squinted through his grazing headache and the dull thud of his forehead’s slash that slammed its knuckles against his skull knocking tirelessly.

“ _You_ gave me this.”

Shiro noticed that Keith wasn't latching on still.

“It was in my locker.”

He handed it to Keith and proceeded to lean against his locker, arms folded. Surveying. Waiting.

Keith’s vision blurred through the crooked words, he felt the rain of blood circulate to his cheeks. He was slowly recollecting everything now from the night before, what he had thought through his drunken state… what he had done.  
The letter was some bullshit about how angry he was with Shiro who didn't remember him as his-

“ _Best friend_?”

It was a sound of distaste, Shiro wanted to wash it off his tongue as soon as he could. It rolled out sickeningly.

Keith gulped audibly.

“Umm…”

He had no answers, no way out of this one.

“Keith.”

He took it down a notch, surprising Keith enough to look up, afraid with what would come.

“I helped you that one time but that doesn't mean anything, okay?”

Shiro scratched the back of his head, a tick Keith knew well but didn't help nevertheless.

“Yeah… got it, buddy.”

Shiro walked away making Keith’s heart retract and falter and almost stop entirely.

 

It was later, much later. 

Keith was empty of sleep and spells of drought of anything and everything all at once, it consumed him whole.  
He was lounging in the loft watching the stars flicker in and out as the clouds danced about them. He watched them through the large industrial windows that loomed behind his head as he rolled in bed where he pondered sleep.

He thought about Voltron a lot at night, but if he was being truly honest he mostly thought about Shiro.

As he attempted to what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, he shut his eyes and felt sleep play at the edges of his mind. Getting whisked away from his troubles, feeling numb and whole again. It was only then that his landline decided to ring.

_Dammnit_.

Grumbling as he slapped his bare feet against the cold concrete ground making a _pat-pat-pat_ noise become singular with the dripping of a tap nearby, he picked up the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Par...ee”

He rearranged the phone to his ear, screwing his eyes as if to make him hear better, he answered back.

“Sorry, I can't hear you properly.”

“P-A-R-T-Y. PARTAAAY.”

It was Hunk.

Keith sighed, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“Hunk, it's late.”

Keith could almost hear his pouting through the phone.

“Not _that_ late.”

Keith glanced at the clock that resided beside the phone and sighed knowing full well that Hunk wouldn't let him sleep either way. 

He resigned.

“Fine. Where is it?”

He could hear the squeal piercing his eardrum before Hunk told him with military precision where the house was.

 

Keith gave the house the stink eye as soon as he had a full look at it, as if it was the monster living under his bed all these years only to just find out when he’s older that it was only small and pitiful. _Just_ like the house that stood before him.  

He walked towards the backyard’s entrance lazily to only look agape at the multitude of people that resided in there.

Keith jumped up from his spot as Hunk shouted in his ear.

“Hey bean, you made it!”

“Yeah, you made the directions pretty thorough. Couldn't get lost even if I tried.”

And boy, didn't he try.

Hunk gleamed and handed him a drink that resembled a lot like dishwater. Keith mouthed at him as he took it. _So soon?_ Before Hunk winked at him and Keith was beside himself smiling in the new arranged atmosphere and took a likeable gulp despite its profound appearance.

They browsed along the yard while some party-goers eyed them in spite, others smiled and welcomed them wholeheartedly, probably mind numbly drunk.

“Hunk?”

Hunk was in the middle of giving Keith and himself a handful of chips.

“Yeah, boy?”

“Where are the others?”

The chips tasted stale.

“They couldn’t make it. Didn't think they could come out this late.”

Keith let the remaining snack flutter to the ground where they crumbled under a running boy’s footing. He was looking at Hunk awestruck, gaping at him.

“And you dragged me out here?”

He shrugged sheepishly.

“You looked like you wouldn't have much sleep anyway.”

Always too blunt for words. Keith knew he was right though, he knew too well.

“Considering what happened today with you and Shiro.”

Hunk rushed in, not looking at Keith square in the eye.

“How did you-?”

Hunk poked the side of his nose.

“I have my ways.” He winked.

“You stayed behind and eavesdropped, didn't you?”

“Alright, you caught me!”

He slung a heavy weighted arm around Keith’s neck.

“You were knocked out last night in front of Shiro’s locker, so… I was curious as to what's up, and oh boy, WHAT. IS. UP?”

He laughed merrily as Keith play punched his chest. _Quit it._

Hunk gave  him another round of drinks and Keith looked down at the disgusting residue that remained in his first. Surprised he was already out.

“I won't forget though, I want to bring this up on the most important days of your life, like your wedding day, for instance.”

He laughed again but this time dodged Keith’s second hit.

They then started to dwell at the made-up bar, sipping at some weird concoctions of spirits and cocktails that came tailing their way, yapping about god knows what as Keith’s eyes naturally roamed the smoky yard that zoomed around them.

It was by this time the alcohol hit in and he felt it was a blessing as the sins of the day were soon to be forgotten.

But not _all_ of them.

Across the shimmering pool that centred itself in the greenery, Keith spotted a familiar someone and of course that someone had to be Shiro.

He was laughing with a bunch of pretty girls, cheerleaders from their school, smiling the world away as if he hadn't rejected Keith hours earlier. Something in Keith tore apart. He was filled with alcohol and rinsed with running bad luck. He drained the last dregs of his third, fourth? drink before he stormed towards Shiro without a tether of a warning.

Gripping the front of the other man’s shirt before he hit him square in the jaw.

“You deserve this.”

A thought that made its way without permission through his bruising lips.

Keith let go and watched as Shiro rubbed his jaw in amazement.

“Keith? What the-”

He swung out of the way this time as Keith threw in his second punch, only a lot slower, the alcohol draining his reactions to a staggering sloth rate. He readjusted his stance sloppily and attempted for another throw, this time Shiro caught his arm midway and reeled him in closely, so only Keith could hear him.

“You don't know what you're getting into, Keith.”

“Shut up!”

Keith unattached himself before he attempted to kick Shiro’s groundings, only losing his own footing. He half fell before tirelessly started pounding fists into Shiro’s hard chest.

It wasn't that Shiro was getting impatient. He was just looking tired.

“Keith. Stop.”

Keith just screamed in response picking up the pace of his watered down, broken up punches.

Something chipped away in Shiro, Keith didn't know what until he pushed him, and Keith couldn't do anything but drag him down with him. Where they both ultimately fell in the pool that took everyone’s breath away with a big splash.

Something about the cold water, shook them both up a little enough to realise what they both had ensued and been in the middle of.

They looked at each other soaked in chlorine and leaves that had once fallen from the lingering tree above now decorated their hair.

 

“Promise me, no more fighting.”

The host threw towels at both the boys before slamming her bedroom door as she exited, leaving the two alone in the flickering buzz of silence and the ghostly echoes of the party downstairs. 

They both took in drying in front of the en suite bathroom mirror rebelling in the silence with the sounds of friction and squeaking of wet shoes against stone tiles.

Keith noticed Shiro smile slightly to himself in the reflection.

“What?” Keith asked amused, attempting for it to come out viciously but to only be replaced with a half ladened laugh.

Shiro shook his head side to side, still smiling as he looked down to the sink in somewhat disbelief.

All of a sudden he started to flick some water droplets that plummeted from the tap into Keith’s face. Keith was only half entertained as he squinted at him in their reflection.

“This has been the most exciting thing that's happened to me all year.” Shiro admitted to the distilled air.

“Oh yeah? Some life you got there.”

Keith started to joke, flicking some water back at Shiro only to capture some more laughter from the both of them. Keith was slowly sobering up a little at each passing second. Feeling how the fight he caused was miraculously stupid of him.

The air around Shiro suddenly felt serious, dragging Keith with him.

“I lost someone close recently, so yeah, I guess. Some life”

There was another soft silence that ticked the minutes away, stealing their time from each other before it turned and Shiro gave out a meek smile.

“Thanks for tonight. It reminded me of a few important things about myself.”

He gripped Keith’s shoulder as if he was the one in mourning. Though, that was somewhat true.

“I’m- sorry, Shiro, about that, about the fight.” Keith stammered trying to rid the words as quickly as he could.

Shiro’s saddened eyes suddenly renewed into an old glow that Keith knew all too well. Keith watched the expression cascade and morph into something familiar but new, enveloping his old friend.

He smiled once more before waving his hand at Keith as he exited out of the door.

“Me too.”

Keith watched his own reflection through the seesawing of sadness and enlightenment, but _hope_ was there live and well.

 


	3. Save The Last Dance For Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine these following things: Keith wearing Shiro's large varsity jacket, he has little sweater paws as it's too long at the sleeves. The two going into a drive in cinema ready to watch Rebel Without A Cause only to be eyeing each other up the whole time, and making out by the end of it. Imagine though, Shiro dressing up like a Greaser, attempting to join Rebellious Rites to impress Keith only ending up taking everything seriously and Shiro signing up for real. Imagine Jock boy Shiro and Greaser Keith hiding and stealing kisses in the hidden corners of their school as their friends search for them. Just imagine.
> 
> I'm tired and we're nowhere near the end of this just yet.

Keith had only one true weakness.

It could lay one slender, delicate hand on him and untether what remaining strings that kept him in tack, until he was completely undone.    
It was Shiro’s affection and respect for him, it was the pinnacle of such existence that Keith relied on so heavily to live by day by day, since the first time they met. Crazy right?

That being said, it was to no surprise when he couldn't help but steal glances towards the one and only, Takashi Shirogane soon after what occurred at the party, too soon after they became something less of enemies and more of friends again.

Broken thought after broken thought. Trying to add it all up.    
The only thought that was really strong enough, lingering and true enough was that he needed to see as much of Shiro as he possibly could. Drink him all in until all of him was gathered up in his memory’s grasp. His finer details that Keith cherished the most; the lines that pulled creases around the curl of his lips as he glided himself into laughter. The way he carried himself like an aged old warrior as he strode on by, collecting respect and honour by the dozen. How his voice rang like shimmering wind chimes on a breezy sunny day, sweeping away the creeping sense of darkness that latched and cradled Keith wholeheartedly. Of course, there was also, the way he looked back at Keith when those greedy stolen glances were taken back into his own twinkling eyes, fresh and new.

There was something that happened after the party, the way Shiro softened up to Keith as if Keith was the only one who truly understood him, the only one who was there for him, you know, really there, and wasn't that the truth, anyhow?   
Had he not known him for so long that they would bound to grasp on one another, cling on so deep as they did, no matter the era, the reality, the universe, he would always get through to Shiro, and Shiro would always feel more for Keith back? 

There were even times those days, when Shiro buddied up with Keith during school, before school and even afterwards, colliding into one another like stars ready to reborn. Their chats turning into deep, tense pools of conversations leading to the winks of the evening as they delve into glorious journeys to the diner where they would yap and yap away about whatever non-stop because how can they not? It was as if they had not seen enough of each other for years. Maybe it had been so.

There was no doubt when the so-called _ Rebellious Rites _ greaser gang came stumbling into their usual crib at the diner bumping into Keith as he was about to jostle out after yet another long catch up with a certain jock he had eyes for, that they would want to say a thing or two to him and nothing seemed too pleasant about it.

They were eating.  
Nothing conspicuous there, though this time Keith was left out.   
It had so seemed, that the interrogation meant no food for the prisoner. They had been talking to him, asking questions, waiting no second for a coherent answer just letting their harsh words slide on by and in doing so condensing up the hot thickset air.

“-Yeah, what's with you these days, Keith? All goo goo eyes for that big guy?” 

Hunk was bracing the back of Keith’s neck, though it was in a noncommittal and in a friendly sense, to Keith though, with the questions stringing endlessly one after the other, coming hand in hand with this action, it felt like a steel vice, a clamp locking Keith into place.    
_  
Are you in or are you out, boy?_

It made Keith want to instinctively snap his hand right off him and butcher on about how they got it all wrong.

“You still hate jocks, don't you?”   


That was Sal. He said it in a brutally harsh primitive tone, making Keith naturally straighten his back and ball his fists tightly. They had been throwing crazy accusations at him left, right and centre all evening and there was only so much a person could take.    
  
Besides, he never really  _ hated _ jocks in particular, in the first place, not the present Keith anyway. The only people he really hated were Sendak and Zarkon, who only happened to be Jocks, that wasn’t their fault, he guessed, much less his own. And while he considering it, he would never hate on Shiro, no matter the universe, the time, the whatever, it saddened Keith to even think he could in the first place, that Shiro had still forgotten him, that everyone believed the two were destined to hate one another.    
The thing is, he wanted to cling onto the new hope that it was all changing now, that the two were best friend once more. Whether the Greasers agreed and believed in that or not, he wasn’t going to stand by and allow them to decide.

He got up and left them without a word, leaving them all speechless in his wake at his sudden departure.

 

Keith for no reason at all, then to get himself distracted and alone, went for the ‘ _ One day only carnival spectacle!’ _ that landed itself in the midst of their small ditch of a town. What a better way to forget all that mishap than waste some good quality dough on pointless carnival games and get fat on quick dodgy snacks that made its way into bile a few hours later.

Keith was tossing hoops, while the carny eyed him lazily through his yawns. It was a mindless activity for the both of them, though it did the whole ‘get isolated and away from everyone’ justice.

He tossed another ball, it rattled with a dislodging sucking noise as it flipped a few inches out of reach of the hoop.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

It was Shiro, and he was smiling his usual toothy grin at him, shining away the demons that always seemed to crawl and lurk and attach on Keith’s mind and soul. 

Keith looked away from the hoop just enough to look up into Shiro’s warm eyes once he reached him.    
He lodged the ball under his arm casually as he heard the carny sigh loudly in annoyance,  _ it wasn't like there was a line anyway _ , Keith huffed in thought. 

“Yeah… fancy seeing you here.” 

Keith’s eyes rolled around Shiro’s broad shoulders, landing on some of his usual gang near enough behind them, only with the additional fleeting girls tagging along, pointing at the stuffed soft toys they wanted the boys to win for them.   
  
Keith grunted disapprovingly in disgust, as he watched Zarkon swiftly cup one of the girl’s asses before she leap up and yelped, making the two guys laugh and the other girls brew a cloud of annoyance and faux pas.

“Not alone, though?” 

Keith nodded his head up to his new found.

Shiro turned slightly to glance at them in the corner of his eye, he laughed slightly in embarrassment, oblivious to the wreckage of a social event his friends had caused previously.

“Yeah, about that… got pulled into a double date. You know the drill.” 

_ Actually _ , Keith thought sullenly, _ I don't _ . 

“Anyway,” Shiro interrupted any lingering thoughts Keith had of his lacking love life and got pulled back to reality in one small  _ ping! _ “mind I join you shooting some hoops?”

He grabbed for the ball that was nestled under Keith’s arm anyway and went straight for the hoop, getting it in on the first go. Keith didn't care to fight the smile as he looked upon Shiro’s renounced accuracy. 

“Guess not.” 

After a pause, he continued.

“So what’s the reason behind all this, you ditching to play with some balls instead?” Keith sighed out a half laugh.

“Ha… Ha.” 

Shiro feigned but then instantly returned a genuine smirk. 

“Just not working out. That's all.”

“Why’s that then?”

Keith took the next shot and it sloppily bounced off the metal hoop, he acted unconcerned but felt a slight nip at his ego when Shiro chuckled at the failed attempt. He was distracted that’s all.   
_ By him _ .

“Not my type, I guess.”

_ Always the honest one. _

Shiro shrugged it off but Keith gave him a furrow knitted brow, full of concern and somewhat curiosity.

“What?”    
  
Shiro asked bemused at Keith’s expression.

“Just… did you even try to get to know her?”

He didn't know why he really cared about that in particular, those minor details that didn't really concern him. He pinned it down to wanting his best friend to be happy or something along those emotions.

“Huh, did I?”

Shiro asked himself and got swept and whisked away into his own trance before Keith started to playfully punch his arm back to reality.

“Come now, wanna punch the crap out of the punching bag over there?”

He attempted to put a smile back on Shiro’s face. 

Shiro perked up suddenly and shrugged as a response. 

“Why not? ‘S’long as I’m not the punching bag.”

It turned out to be a pretty good night.    
Albeit, Keith wanted his alone time that he oh so lacked since he arrived there, there was something about the night sky that was luminous with the gusto and splendour of the attraction’s lights, spreading an ocean of fire into the darkness, the way that Shiro volunteered to win a stuffed toy at Keith’s expense, a rather large one at that, and then ending it all by saddling kiddie rides to the big ol’ monster roller-coaster that rattled around the field like an humongous snake. It was enough for both Keith and Shiro to forget about their friends all together.   
  


It was sometime past nine o’clock. They were heading back home before Shiro’s stomach started to play its anthem of its people and growled through the radio’s chatter, making Keith snort and his drink peppered out of his nose. 

“Wanna go into the diner’s drive thru and grab a bite?”

Shiro nodded and right on queue, the drumming music that was usually fenced in throughout the diner came travelling their way through the open windows, and the extensive dramatised fluorescent sign that does its job begging for customers, dangled over the roof of the car as they skidded to a stop at the drive-thru. Yet again, they bought themselves the usual sloppy grease that gave away to happiness and the road to high cholesterol.

“Maybe I should give you some decals, this baby would look great in some I just got in stock.”

Keith piped up through a mouthful of food, he was stroking Shiro’s window sill approvingly.

“How much?”

“On the house.”

Keith stuffed five fries into his mouth in one go to make Shiro laugh.

“What for?”

Shiro ignored the act completely making Keith pout as he finished chewing. 

“That time.” He spoke through the remaining starch and gulped.

Keith pointed a finger at the alleyway he was previously beaten up in.

“Keith…”

Shiro was giving him  _ that look _ . 

“No, no don't Keith me, just let me repay you like this, okay?”

Shiro didn’t look that convinced but he stole a fry that perched itself in between Keith’s fingertips and grinned as he did so. It was something Keith liked about Shiro, the niceness in him that could wash away whatever havoc he may be in.   
  


It was a lazy Saturday, the sky crawled to a pinkish peak and overlooked Keith’s loft as it splintered through the half cracked blinds. Keith was lounging on the floor in his boxers, freshly burnt toast loosely tucked between his teeth. He was drowsy but nevertheless was enthusiastically rolling on the floor with all sorts of mechanical knickknacks and his trusty spanner, liking to get things done bright and early.

So did someone else. Apparently.

He jumped slightly in his place as there was a harsh rattling knock at the door. Rubbing his eyes as he trotted towards the sound, all sloth like, yawning through his stretches.

“Hey.”

Shiro for once, wasn't in his usual iconic varsity jacket. Instead he was in a neatly tucked plaid boxed shirt, rolled at the sleeves, and rolled up jeans that exposed his pulled up to the brim bobby socks. Keith couldn’t wait to get the chance to rub this look in his face someday. It was something he could never imagine current time Shiro wearing.

He smiled surveying Keith up and down, lingering a little too long around his exposed body before coughing. Keith felt heat itch the tips of his ears but held to his ground, leaning against the door frame and raised his eyebrows, nonchalant and cool.

“Hey…”

Shiro shifted on his feet, looking down as he did so before reuniting his gaze with Keith's.

“I know it's early.”

Keith ran his fingers through his hair that escaped its mould.

“ You don't say?”

The other man couldn't help but laugh. 

“I know, I'm sorry, sorry for intruding… maybe I shouldn't have come, maybe this was a bad idea. I don't know what came over me, I-”

He took a few steps back, something was obviously rattling his mind to make him this jumpy, Shiro of all people, this nervous and unsure of himself? Not a lot of people would see the day.

Keith took his arm slowly but surely just in time to stop him. They both silently looked at the gentle grasp.

“No, stay.” Keith spoke softly. “What do you want, Shiro?”

He looked up impishly at Keith through the white streaks that tainted his hair, piercing through with a wild eye gaze.

“A distraction.” 

 

It just so turned out that Keith wasn't the only one going through a rough time. Shiro was going through some things and wanted his new/old best friend to help him forget about it all. Keith asked why he didn’t hang with the usual jocks crew anymore and Shiro just shrugged it off as if a bug on a windshield got caught one second and let itself go the next. He wanted to just let it go.

“We had a falling out.”

“It's because you're hanging out with me now, right?”

Shiro didn't reply.

The roaring of Shiro’s engine cut finely against the clutter of diffusing people that hassled towards the big gleaming entry sign of the large building ahead of them.

Keith was sucking a Popsicle that both he and Shiro got before heading out to the latter’s totally secret not so secret plan of distraction, and that was the good ol’ bowling alley. 

Shiro just crunched the breaks while Keith whipped his head out of the window like a eager puppy, going all out to see the big wild world. Though, unlike said puppy, he was eyeing the building in the most sceptical way. 

“Hmm.”

Shiro was already out of the car when he was bending over with his head beside Keith’s getting his perspective and take of the large building he was witnessing.

“Don't like it?”

“Not that.”

“Then what?”

“Just… looks familiar somehow.”

There were a lot of occasions when Keith had this sense of déjà vu. As soon as he hit the very pits of the 1950s he noticed it more and more, a sense of familiarity but outright alienation, it never made any sense to him.

Keith shrugged off the ever growing suggesting feelings that constantly flooded his mind with crazy superstitions and ideas, and went off following Shiro’s stead into the bowling alley. 

They ordered two large drinks and a small basket of snacks. 

Keith felt the hot burn of people eyeing them up and down and all over as they were walking towards their lane. He had a hunch it wasn't an average thing for those days for just two guys hanging out together alone. And as Keith casually looked about at a thing or two, he guessed his theory was somewhat correct only seeing large groups and just boys and girls together made it seem so. Another grunt gurgled through his throat as they trudged against a couple that had no shame in hiding their glaring stares.

_ Just you wait for the future, kids. _

They reached their lane and Keith started to feel the peak of small excitement bestow him.    
He took a small fry out of the basket, shaped in Shiro’s hand, and Shiro did the same, and for a second their hands bumped and skimmed each other’s.  _ That's nothing, right? Totally normal. _ Keith thought. Except for the feeling that rumbled in him more and more when those odd occasions occurred with him those days. He tried to hide the awkward electricity that came out of it by quickly making himself busy with stuffing his mouth with food looking bored.

Luckily, unlucky, Shiro was unharmed by the whole mediocre facade, once again oblivious to everything Keith felt he might as well have imagined up. 

“Been bowling before?”

Keith thought about it for a beat. Not since he was little. Not since with his dad...

He gulped down his drink, attempting to flush down the fries that accumulated his throat and the nagging anxiety that hatched there. 

“Not for a long time.” Was all he said.

Nodding, Shiro started weighing each bowling ball in his hands until he found the perfect match. 

“I'll go first, and you just mimic my stance and swing after.”

Keith sighed and agreed but smiled as he saw Shiro suddenly becoming serious as he propped into the perfect stance and swung his arm in a perfect smooth arch in one motion.   
So help him, Keith couldn't take his eyes off  him. 

It turned out to be a strike.  _ Of course it did _ . 

Shiro pivoted on his heels and gleamed, swaying his arms towards the alley at Keith as if to say,  _ after you _ .

“Now, it's your turn.”

As Keith nudged his shoulder as he walked past him towards his station, he tugged into the words.

“ Nice throw.”

Keith didn't take as long to pick the perfect weighted ball. It also didn't take that long to match his stance and arm’s throw to Shiro’s. He could almost feel his judging stare pointing daggers at his back.

He lunged the ball where it hit square in the middle of the lane with a heavy-heart thud before dribbling slowly to the side, dropping profoundly into the gutter with a dramatic applause. 

“You're using too much of your strength.”

Shiro’s voice stretched far enough to Keith’s perked up ears.

It was a criticism worth noting rather than filling with spite, though, mind you, any remark and advice coming out of Shiro’s mouth was worth remembering. 

“Right.”

Keith got prickly easily and naturally, he was stubborn that way.

Shiro laughed now knowing (again) that rowdy stubbornness that came as a full package with Keith.

Shiro got up.

Keith didn't move, he didn't move as he heard the footsteps pounding over the cascading senseless noise of people around him. He didn't move when he saw Shiro with a ball prodded in between them, the only thing that got in their way of being as close as Keith wanted to admit to be. He felt Shiro’s laughter lightly brush over the tips of his hair, the strummer of his heart that he wanted to question and question again when Shiro breathed out,  _ Look _ . Keith looked down at the ball in the gap between them, making a world as small as his own grasp.    
  
“I'll help you.” 

Shiro placed the ball into Keith’s hands where his long fingers spanned naturally around the sphere, Shiro cupped his hands over the flush of Keith’s and he smiled.

_ He thought nothing of it, but I felt everything _ . 

He continued to steer Keith back towards the lane, other hand now tightly gripping his shoulder, humming instructions delicately in his ear. 

“Obviously we want the centre to be our aim to knock most of the pins down. Helps to give it a little spin.” 

He then dragged his hand off of Keith’s shoulder brushing a rush of numbing electricity down to Keith’s elbow, proceeding to kick softly between Keith’s feet making it into a perfect stance to go by. Finally, he smoothly guided Keith’s arm to align with his own, back towards a steady groundbreaking swing.

“Now aim slightly to the right and we’ll put a left spin.” 

Shiro didn't once let go of Keith’s arm until the ball unlatched itself out of Keith’s fingertips, making them grow cold and prickly.

They watched the speeding ball in anticipation as it rocketed itself to a slamming break against the brick wall of pins, leaving one stranded.

“Good, Keith!”

“Well, that was practically all your doings.”

He smiled sheepishly, rubbing against his elbow. 

“Well then, show me what  _ you _ got.”

“Fine.” 

He was smug and full of euphoria after that.   
This time he put more thorough thought into carefully mimicking his body that stood in the same stance a few moments ago.

He pulled his arm back, and with a small pluck of a ball unearthing his fingers once more, he waited as the ball to once again run its course down memory lane.  _ Heh _ .

This time he got a strike.

“Woo!”

He heard Shiro clapping notoriously and whistling through it all. Keith couldn't help but feel simultaneously stupid proud and utterly embarrassed at the scene they were causing. 

They sat down for a celebratory drink after a few more throws, it was getting tiring and also because Keith didn't know how much his legs could take, he wanted to shake all his nerves out. 

“Thanks for the help.”

Shiro hitched a shoulder, unamused by the gratitude.

“Didn't do much, you just needed some small guidance.”

“Yeah…”

He rubbed against his arm where Shiro earlier touched, a subconscious act as he drained the rest of his drink thinking how great the day had been. 

 

There were times when all they did was talk and laugh, laugh and talk.

In the diner, in Keith’s garage and even sometimes on the school’s rooftop, that everyone was forbidden to go to.   
Keith would watch Shiro when he wasn't look, he would think about him when he wasn't around, when he was around, though, he’d think about him even more. He grew more and more concerned over how his heart hammered and twisted about Shiro, until, until it all clicked, all in the right places, enough that he had to look at it with acceptance, maybe even more than that, that a new fleeting feeling, true as the sky became day and turned to night. A feeling that he could love getting use to. 

Keith shut his locker with a low rumble against the quiet hallway, where he then met eye to eye with Shiro, casually lounging against the wall of lockers beside his.

“Hey.”

Keith inflated and swelled as soon as he saw him.

“Hey!”

He said back a little too enthusiastically. 

“By the way, was that James Dea-?”

Shiro played as he saw a quick snippet of the photo of the actor pinned to the inside of  Keith’s locker.

“What? Huh, no...” 

Keith, flustered, laughed it off uneasily, as Shiro was content with the humour of it all. He put his hands up in mock defence.

“Okay, okay! Sorry!” A cheeky smirk unravelled itself, “ By the by, you hungry?”

“There's never a time when I'm not.”

Keith peeked up as he watched Shiro take point leading them to lunch.

“So, you're not coming to the dance then?”

Keith shook his hair out, biting his lip. He told the full story to Shiro, the whole ins and outs, the story he was too embarrassed to say any time before because it involved a certain angry letter to a certain nice guy jock.

“Been banned from the big man, himself.” 

He pointed up to the sky.

Shiro laughed, “what?”

“The Principle. You going?”

He only half cared about the answer, he persuaded himself into believing that, at least.

“Yeah. I like to dance.”

He laughed, he couldn't help it.

“Huh? Didn't peg you as a dancing sort of guy.”

Shiro looked embarrassed.

“Didn't think so too until recently when I tried it full out one night at the diner.”

Keith prodded his side playfully.

“Not judging you! You have to show me your moves one day.”

He winked liking this new side he was discovering.

“In your dreams, Keith.”

_ Yeah, yeah, yeah.... _

Keith was in mid-laugh when he saw the whole set up.   
There was a blanket laid flat under the bleachers, fully flushed out with beer bottles and sandwiches and a fully-blown picnic decorating it all. 

“What's this?”

“A surprise.”

“You don't say. What's the occasion?”

Keith walked around it as if  he was sizing it up.   
Shiro was instantly seated. He raised an eyebrow at Keith and grinned, patting the space next to him. Keith soon resigned and obeyed.

“Does there have to be one?”

“Guess not.”

He opened a beer with his hands and Shiro was amused, Keith felt rewarded. 

“Aren't you afraid we’d get caught?” He meant it offhandedly. 

Shiro shook his head as he drank.

“The teachers usually smoke out that side, they don't come this way often around this time.”

“No I mean-”

Keith didn't mean to let it slip. He fiddled with the beer bottle, embarrassed.

He didn't look up as he continued.

“We’re two guys. Alone.”  _ In the 50s _ , he thought, more of a stricter time to be so open about it he was sure, “having a picnic?”

“Oh.”

_ Oh, indeed.  _

“Well, I didn't really consider it that way.”

_ Of course you didn't, and of course I did because well how could I not with everything I've been feeling recently, being this paranoid, being this confused. Being this in lo- _

“Yeah?”

“I mean, we don't, you don't… have to eat here, with me, you know.” 

“I- I'm not complaining, it's fine, I'm fine.”

Shiro slowly got up, cupped his neck as he rolled his head up to the sky and started to throw more options out.

“We could just go and eat at the cafeteria, you haven't been with your Greasers in a while maybe you should do that I know I've been keeping you away from them for too long.”

He was slowly retreating.    
Panicking Keith tugged on Shiro’s shirt a little too forcefully and they both fell backwards onto the blanket, Shiro on top of Keith, nose to nose, an inch away. 

There was a prolonged silence as they watched each other’s startled reactions. 

Tension was broken suddenly in half as Keith kissed Shiro messily on his trembling lips. He kissed back slightly but only for a second before breaking away, whereupon he looked startled, looking around as if caught by many though only truly they had been seen by none.

“I-I'm sorry I have to go.”

He jogged off leaving Keith breathless and alone, feeling the most sorry.

 

Keith felt rejection hit him hard. He was confused but he didn't know exactly what about. Though, so much so, that he went into school less and less in a useless attempt to untangle his mind, and despite always eagerly working on his Ford, it was now coated with a thin layer of dust, untouched and neglected. He would just sulk in his room, pacing up and down, calling Shiro on the phone helplessly, but no one was there to return the calls. 

He was tired of this stupid time, this stupid era. Tired that this reality had created a Shiro that would hate him no matter how much jurisdiction he threw into it. Shiro would always revert back to hating Keith.    


He just didn't know how to get back home.

Hunk called numerous times, enough times that Keith lost count. He only picked up thinking it was Shiro.

“What's wrong with you these days, man? You hung up on some girl?”

He sighed, “I'm going to hang up on you now, Hunk.”

“Wait, wait, wait! What about the drag race?!”

“What about it?” He was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What do you mean what about it? It's this weekend! You promised to fix up my hot rod and be my right hand guy.”

“I'm sorry, Hunk, I can't.”

“Why Keith, why can't you hang with us anymore?”

“I just, can't.”

He breathed out in one go and hanged up on him. Slumping back into his bed, he once again took the happy looking photo of his dad and himself into his hands only this time smashing into tiny shards of glass on the ground, covering his screams with his pillow. 

 

He woke up abruptly later, panting in the dark.

Another vortex nightmare.   
But this time, something felt off and somewhat new was brought to the night.   
He heard screaming from outside.

Urgently taking off his jacket off the hook and he ran outside when he saw a string of people gasping while surveying the orange glow in the horizon.

Keith pulled away a girl from the throng of people, she was all dressed up and ready to go.

“What happened? What's going on?”   
  
He was shaking her shoulder, urgently.

She was rasping and made it hard for her words to escape her, before her friend joined them and started consoling her.

“We- we were about to go there, but-but it got caught on fire, it's all up in flames!”

She started to sob, her friend patted her back sympathetically.

“Where?!”

Fear was escalating, like a beat of a drum increasing its tempo. Keith feared the worse was yet to come.

The girl’s friend looked up at him grimly.

“The high school.”

As soon as the words left her mouth he sprinted off, pushing himself to go faster as only one thought was hatching in his mind, and it wasn't a good one.

When he arrived all he saw was soot ridden kids all dressed up underneath the cloak of black. They all watched the fiery embers of the school that flickered in the distance.  Keith ran towards the danger, ignoring the police and firefighters that threw slurring objections at him as he went by.   
He was looking for someone and no one could stop him from finding them.

He stopped suddenly as a form made its way to the entrance, it took form and he felt a gasp stuck in his jugular. He could recognise Shiro anywhere.

Shiro noticed him too, he was limping, trying to drag himself closer to him, trying to get out of the school’s threshold as soon as he could.  
Keith saw his mouth move. He was stuck in place. He couldn't hear it. Then he started to move again, Keith almost sprinted before a second later tripped over something hard.

“Hello…  _ punk _ .”

“Now’s not the time, Zarkon.”

Keith almost hissed as he quickly picked himself back up, not taking an eye off from Shiro for a second.

“Yeah, when’s a good time for your pretty little mind, huh? 4pm tomorrow maybe have a little tea party at that?”

Sendak smirked at the response, Keith didn't. 

“Look, your friend over there.” He pointed at Shiro. “He's in fucking danger, so you better get the fuck out of my way before I tear you apart!”

Zarkon had his grasp on Keith’s face now, smothering his cheeks into his claws.

“You better look at me when we’re talking, pipsqueak.”

Keith heard Shiro this time.

“Keith…”

He was calling for him. He was calling for help.

Keith screamed and pushed the two out of his way.

“Shiro, Shiro, I’m coming! I'm com-”

Before he could register anything in his brain, the fire blew itself up, combusted and transformed into an inferno. 

The whole building rained down into rubble and dust. Keith fell back from the impact, screaming hoarsely for Shiro. His arm was outstretched still as if he could grab his friend from that distance in time. His screams resonated the smoky air before the smoke became a larger blacker mass. He felt his head snack back into the heat of the gravel ground before feeling his consciousness ebb away into darkness and just that one word etched in its path...

 

_ Shiro… _


	4. Oxfords Before Brogues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name of the chapter is inspired by a quote from Kingsman.  
> Firstly, sorry this took longer than the other chapters to update, my new schedule is all whacked up and I'm still adjusting to it. Secondly, this is a tiny chapter, so I'll get working on the next one as soon as possible so it doesn't feel like you've been ripped off haha.   
> This is a huge change in the story (and tone), and of course, all planned. Actually, it was supposed to be in sections, this being section two in the story but as the sections were so long I wanted to do a few chapter for each of them instead and here we are!
> 
> I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful day!

_Maybe HE didn't want to be saved. Maybe it was the universe preventing him from being saved, or was it, ultimately, against God’s own plan, that I was the one that was in need of saving? That Shiro was the one that needs to save me? Who knows, now that he's gone._

 

Speech erupted from Keith’s soul, disrupting the slender slumber of his mind and body.

_“Shiro!”_

He had awoken to a clustering blast of bright lights thawing his blank stare until they became blotches soon brandishing into a blur then soon again became an illusion.  
Or so he thought.

He was in a dark, tenebrous room. The four walls enclosing in the riddling gloom and starkness that clung deep to the plain peeling walls. It gave you a sense of claustrophobia, walls closing in and the ceiling shutting down on you and with that Keith ran to the only exit.

He stepped into a brightly lit office that emerged from his dank own room. Something greater grew here in stark contrast to the reserving room prior. There, came a sudden chatter, obstreperous and piercing to the barely born ears from mere awakening. It was also much lighter here, the gleam of natural light bore through the large imploring windows that sprung about the interior. It was as if he turned the handle and out he came into a new world.

Though, that was exactly what had happened.

What do you do when there are more questions than answers?

Keith could not help but question it all, question and question again, the answers were completely empty and decrepit. There were no leads to tie the strings of clarification and understanding there were just _This_ and _That_. None of which really added up together.

It was all too disorientating, to say the least. His thoughts still upon Shiro, thirsty for more attention. But for now, Keith could only afford to leave it in drought.

“Too much at the gentlemen’s meet last night, I presume?”

It was a man spruce up to the brim in neat formal attire. Even his shoes were polished to a shine and his moustache down to its uniformed curls. He was ogling Keith fruitfully for whatever reason he could not pinpoint.

“Uh, yeah.”

Keith was confused, one leg still very much in a realistic dream. But what now? Where now? And what was now?

Time to give it a go to answering those impossibly grandiose questions.

“Um excuse me, do you know the date?”

“Hmm?”

The unusual dapper stranger looked up from his desk, the scattered piles of papers permitted a full view of him.

“November 6th.”

“Uh, and the year?”

“Pardon me? How could you possibly not know?”

“Amuse me.”

He ushered a crude laugh but then looked up at him strangely before shuffling his work and keeping most of his attention now at the mountain of papers beyond him, Keith suspected would take all morning to organise.

“1870.”

_It can’t be._

How could he have possibly travelled in time once more? Was it, could it possibly, to do with him passing out? Like the time in the cavern or again when...when Shiro…

He flew out the room, bringing the tide of sweeping papers and a bemusing _excuse me!_ whistling behind him.

Rushing out was a bad idea. He hit a wall of incomprehension. There right in front of him were a clamouring crowd of students, he presumed so anyway, all boys, clad in a similar formal attire. Only then did he look down at himself and see himself drenched in full professor gowns. A university? 1870? He couldn’t help but aim for the double doors that swung in remorse at each of its turns.

As he stormed on by he scarcely heard a student bellow in his wake.

“Good morning, Mr Koga-!”

He ignored him and busted out of the entrance of the university at once.

He didn’t know what to expect, and the thing is maybe the expecting was meant to be unheard of, to begin with. Because out he went into the breeze and grey that curdled the city into its windswept arms and he became so unfamiliar of his surroundings that he felt himself become lightheaded.

It was even more crowded and even more loud and his head was even more in a blurring head rush and a mindless headache. What could he possibly do then walk down the streets whilst nursing his head and all but speculate his surroundings?

London, England…. He didn’t need to be so close to Big Ben’s fulminating chimes to know that already.

One thing was for certain, and that was that he had time travelled once again. Now not only in a different era but a different location! He just did not know how the variables worked and whether his sense of drooping in and out of consciousness had anything to do with it. Though, Keith thought it was the only thing he had to go with.

Something glinted and glistened in the corner of his eye, and much like a mother magpie being pulled into the direction of something unbelievably shiny, he stopped in his tracks.

There in the storefront, embellished with a glamour of rich red wine velvet fabric it nestled in, was a ravishing new novel. As if the gods had it in for him, for better or for worse, it was a time travelling book.

His breath faded against the glass as he stepped forward to get a better look. It was ludicrous and all signs said it was just fiction but as he just thought it was a sign, a crazy, stupid, ironic sign-

_Did I just see…?_

He whipped his head around side to side frantically. There in the reflection he thought he saw, that smile- the one he knew that washed the blues of the day and scared the shadows away, the gait that pointed all arrows at the very definition of leadership, and that hair, _my god_ , crazy beautiful anatomy of glistening strands, mixing in the blacks and the stark white.

_It was him, it couldn’t be, he’s **gone**._

And even though the word almost left an audible tremor through his parting lips, Keith took flight and hustled down the streets of London, hoping against all hope, standing for any reason and logical sense. Having only one set thought in mind.

He couldn’t have gone too far.

Crazy, his thoughts were going wild. I’m in denial, this is insane, he isn’t here. He isn’t.

He kept going and as the fleeting crowds were a steady mass of black and white attire, there was no known figure in sight.

“Shiro!”

_What are you doing? Are you expecting someone to answer when there is no one?_

He got quite a few unusual and startled stares. He didn’t blame them.

He started to rub his eyes, pushing away his reckless thoughts and marched back down to the bookstore with the helplessness and new found hope sinking ships inside him.

 

“Ah, to be honest, not a lot of sales for this one.”

Keith had just handed over the time travelling book to the cashier who was now turning over the so-called sci-fi book, or whatever they made it out to be back in the day, in his large wrinkly hands. He had no idea what was crazier, him buying a preposterous book that had more lies than soul for truth or that he ran down the streets of London frantically on a wild goose chase searching for a dead man mere seconds ago.

He was biting into the idea that maybe this, this book, would give him at least more sense on how to get back or by minimum give him food for thought on what the hell was going on with him in the first place.

“-But if you ask me, I say it looks like a good read.”

The cashier was still whistling on. He winked at Keith and made sure the newly purchased novel was nicely wrapped before gently handing it over to Keith.

“Thanks.”

He gave a halfhearted smile, and walked back out of the store, flipping through the book’s contents dismissively before heading back to the only place he knew; the university.

 

Keith felt flustered and irritated, finding nothing in the book that he hoped to find at first glance. As he mindlessly trotted back down the hallways of the university flipping from one useless page to the next, he felt a loud hammering slam against his front almost pushing him back wholeheartedly to the ground.

“Co- _Coran_?”

Coran, as devilish as ever, stood tall in front of Keith, straightening his gown up and patted down a neat touch to his moustache. He down at Keith disapprovingly as if the other man had every ounce of him wanting to bump into each other like that.

“Headmaster would do nicely, Professor Kogane. I’ll let you off just as once for your mishaps but you must get yourself together, being a new teacher assistant and all.”

Keith double takes and almost jeered and laughed at the hilarity of it all.

“I’m a what?”

“You are Mister Keith Kogane, are you not?”

“Yes?”

He didn’t know how else to see it.

“Is that an answer or a question?”

Mouth agape and amazed that Coran could quite possibly be just as bad with such manners as he was in present times.

“I mean, I am the one and only Mister Keith Kogane.”

Or at least, he hoped he was.

“We had discussed the day before that we would have a thorough meeting today about such accordance of your new role.”

“Okay…”

Coran held his chin high as he sieved and lifted out his pocket watch from his breast pocket, and glared at the seconds ticking by. The sound obstructing the silence of the echoing hallway.

“Ah, and so be it! Our appointment is now. Follow me Professor Kogane.”

Keith was still too confused to object in any way.

 

The room was quaint and Keith somewhat knew that there was not a speck of dust in sight, the whole room had an air of sparkle and shine to it. Though, it was ravished in lots of mahogany, wine, and gold embellishments it had a dash of strange. Strange in the sense of the fact that the art that hung in dazzling frames were flaunting nightmares on every wall he turned to. Keith took a better look and examined each one. He was amused by his endeavours to find such comparisons, to say the least, the shapes and ornate had close similarities to planets and specks of stars in galaxies, close enough to the ones they had been on, they, he meant Voltron. He gloomed at them in a bittersweet sadness. Feeling the stale aftertaste that peppered his mouth.

“Sit here if you will before I overlap into my next appointment. Time’s a-ticking, young professor.”

He tapped his vest pocket where his pocket watch was resting.

Now, more of his old brash but warm self is coming out, Keith thought while giving Coran a knowing look.

“Like to keep things in tip-top shape around here, I assume?”

He almost started to laze now in his chair as he spoke, forgetting his surroundings. Coran, in response, gave him one raised eyebrow, Keith feigned not to see it, so he dismissed it with a huff and answered straight to Keith’s rhetorical question.

“Ah, yes… Well, it does help, considering we’re the most prestigious school in the country! They need someone like me in charge.”

Something caught in the corner of Keith’s eye the second time that day, it was an old -he supposed it was current at the time- photo of Coran and what seemed to be his family. Keith gently picked it up.

“I suppose so…”

Only half listening now, more amused and sad towards the family that resided in the picture frame. Beautiful and bewitching. What if they were all still alive in real time?

Coran was now roaming about the room, tirelessly as if he had to always be up and moving. He had his hands behind his back looking haste and agitated before slumping back down in his chair again.

“Let’s get to it then, shall we?”

Keith was still lost in thought, missing half of the conversation, only now debating to put the happy family photo down. He felt his gaze glaze over Coran who looked imploringly into him.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

He was speaking so quietly it was a surprise that Coran caught it at all.

“Have we met prior to this, you mean?”  
  
Keith shakes his head in response, breaking out of his reverie as if knocking back the clogs in his mind back into place.

“Never mind. Please continue.”

Coran debated him for a while with a suspicious eye but then realised the time.

“Gracious! Is that the time already? You should go to the auditorium now to meet with the professor you have been assigned to before class starts. This way you can find out anything a teacher assistant in training needs to know.”

Keith nods solemnly.

“Alrig- yes, I’ll go right away.”

He corrected himself in a lackluster manner, reminding himself where he was yet again. Coran smiled and made haste to the door, sweeping a long arm to through it as he just opened it. A polite way of saying, _“get out.”_

Keith arrived at the auditorium with a wonderful new sense of curiosity. It was large and empty, shallow and cold, somehow, it felt lacking but he just did not know why and how. There was one desk and a huge chalkboard overlooking the students' benches. Keith moved about to see everything in detail. Resting his eyes onto the books on the desk, a lot of science. He leafed through some pages casually before turning back to the board and picking up a dusted chalk and testing it out on the board.

“I hope that nothing prolifically vulgar is to come out of your scribbles.”

It was a joke. Keith knew that but he was caught red-handed nevertheless, surprised at that. The man that came with the voice must have stepped in quietly as his voice travelled, as he didn’t detect his presence as he usually could with others, or most others at least. The man had his back turned when Keith looked about, he was unpacking his briefcase, he was probably the professor for the class.

“You are the new assistant, I presume?”

“Depends. What's the class?”

“Science.”

He paused for a moment.

"Or theory of... Most people don't see it as fact."

"And you do?"

He thinks for a second then nods with a small devilish laugh as if he was hiding something nobody would know the truth of.

Keith inwardly smiled. Just what he needed.

“Maybe I made the right choice coming here.”

He was saying it more to himself, than to the stranger but the teacher picked it up nevertheless.

“Well, you can sit at the front for this first lesson, to begin with. A sort of warm up if you will before you can start helping me for next time.”

He waved Keith off, still preoccupied with preparing his paperwork for the class.

Keith shrugged and does what he is told as he watched the room fill up with buzzing words from a growing group of boys. He heard the spine tingling screeches of chalk on board that made Keith’s eye lure back to the front. The professor scrawled in perfect neat cursive. The crowds seemed to be dying down and everyone was almost settling. It was then that Keith comprehended what was before him.

  
Right there in that neat scrawl, _‘Professor Shirogane’._

He couldn’t help it, the thought attempting to formulate but as soon as it matched together it dispersed. How can it be? How could it? There was a releasing of an audible gasp whistling through his teeth. Shiro turned as this happens.

“Welcome everyone!”

He looked eye to eye at everyone before his glance dropped and locked into Keith's alone at the forefront of his view... and off it went around the room again and he continued to speak.

“I’m glad to see so many of you out there, to find so many who are interested in this subject.”

Keith’s mind was whipping back and forth into a blur, like a scurried cat trying to escape a chasing, eager dog.

He was struggling to keep his eyes dry, they glazed with hot burning tears.   
It took every ounce of him, feeling his own blood pumping around his body as he strained to keep his mind in tact, to keep it all in, to not convulse and throw spittle from the swarm of emotions that could fill the room with angry bees.

_Shiro._   
_Alive._   
_Right before me._   
_How can this be?_

The hour ticked on to the impossible. Maybe it was a millennium before he got to see Shiro alone after the students needn’t be ushered out but rushed for a break away from the stuffy room.

_“Professor?”_

Shiro whipped around to Keith’s small calling, and his bright smile was all he could see.

“Please, call me Shiro.

“You-”

Keith attempted to clear his throat, feeling suddenly nervous and defensive over nothing but everything at once.

“You don’t recognise me? Know me? Re...member me?”

It came out. All of it just blurted out with no forewarning.

The smile shifted into some sort of concentration, there was something else there in the hollow of his eyes, though, Keith may just be crazy overthinking it.

“No, sorry, can’t say I have.”

Something deflated in Keith once more. He was more confused than ever and just to top it off, the world seemed to be rubbing it in.

“What’s your name? Sorry, we didn’t have much time earlier to properly introduce ourselves.”

“Um, Keith. It’s Keith Kogane.”

“Mr Kogan-”

“K-Keith is fine.”

His cheeks started to heat into a rash, as he forced the words out. The atmosphere was thick and stifling and all the awkwardness seemed to be humming in the air. Though, he knew exactly why it was so awkward, he just wanted to throw his mind off it.

Those sweet sad memories of the life before, that had once been, to happen so quickly to then went so soon. In a faraway land. A forever ago but still only felt like a burning sense of yesterday.

“If you insist.” Shiro smiled warmly as he continued to say, “Did you enjoy the lesson, then?”

“Uh yeah, I did actually.”

Keith rattled out a small laugh, rubbing against the back of his head whilst looking down at his polished but scruffy shoes from running about on the dirty streets of London.

He was amazed how he was still glorified by Shiro. That there was always something new to find to love about him, which only made his admiration enhance tenfold. And the ache that was a hum in his chest now preach a choir full of hymns and play full on symphonies.

It was within that lesson, where Shiro’s smooth glassy voice echoed and bounced to and fro from the walls to the students back at him, as if his voice had the whole room in an enticing embrace that he knew he could learn from this man for years and never get tired of it. Of him.

“You know anything about the theory of time travel?”

Keith lured the bait.

“Aha! You got me.”

And Shiro took it.

He patted Keith on the shoulder.

“That's for next time, I'll let you know before class starts. Don't spoil it for the others, will you?”

He walked out of the room without another word as if his existence didn't mean the world to Keith, as if he didn't just come back from the burning embers of death to walk back nonchalantly into Keith’s arms once more.

Keith touched his forehead lightly with the back of his hand. A thudding that never seemed to rid itself of its presence. Keith was aching, his soul was aching. Heartbroken and in shambles as he attempted to figure out what on earth he was supposed to do now.

 

What could anyone do now being thrown into such an existence such as this?


	5. So, We Meet Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. So this chapter is a small bit inspired by the (not so good) movie The Time Machine, just a few bits and pieces haha. Also, I mentioned this in the comments before but I have been thinking about a spin-off, based on the 1950s chapters, I got a few ideas down already and am really excited!  
> My final point, I have a twitter for all my writing stuff so if you want to talk there about the fics or whatever and see updates etc. etc. follow me @tzingfung if you want to help me out even more.
> 
> And as usual, I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful day!

Funny, all of it is real... funny.  
The way the birds will always be riddled in tune, the sun will always light up the sky as the moon would always wash the night in its artistic beauty. How people would chatter, laugh and smile, how they would even shout and curse and cause a commotion. The way the leaves on the trees grow, change, die and fall, and the bees buzz and the clocks tick and well...  
Life goes on.  
No matter where you are, who you are, the life of the living stops for nobody and boy, had it not for Keith.

He felt his first day in Victorian London was as confusing as it could get, and the rush, the blur, the clocks zooming by, how could he ever stop, breathe, listen to the logical sense that hid and cowered in his mind? It had to still be in there, hiding and afraid of all the nonsense that whizzed on by.

He was in the dining hall now, day fell into night and it was now dinner time. There were lots of shouts, a laughter rocketed through the ruckus, causing a few heads to turn, question, and then resume back to their dining.

His eyes rested upon Shiro as if they always found their way back to him. He had an easy sense to his posture, smooth but strong willed. His laugh carried many suns, warming that small radius around him. He didn't just carry himself with pride and strength but carried those with him. That, he did with Voltron, and Keith knew that no one could be a better leader to their team than him.

Shiro halted his soundless tune of sinking deep songs of laughter and in-depth, insightful conversation as he spotted Keith looking back at him. He waved him over and pointed to the seat beside him on the staff's dining table.

"How are you finding your official first day?"

"Oh, you know… like I stepped into a dream."

Shiro paused before he burst into a breathy laughter finding it quite humorous despite being completely oblivious to its double meaning. Keith felt the jitterbug in him jolt and did a little back-flip in his chest.

"You are new to London too, correct?"

Keith started to play with the peas on his plate, green and bland but somehow stood out above everything else that was on the table. Maybe he just wanted to focus on something other than Shiro's drilling black glossy eyes. On the other hand, he didn't like peas.

"I guess, yeah." He mumbled.

"How about I show you around this weekend?"

That took Keith by surprise.

Shiro smiled lightly and touched the upper of Keith's arm.

More surprises. Keith had a rush of images in his mind- the time Shiro showed him how to bowl correctly, how he helped him up after that big fight with Zarkon and when they kissed- it all seemed a very long time ago but there nevertheless, fresh as new paint.

_Breathe. Breathe._

"I would like that a lot. Thank you…"

_Did I sound breathy? Fuck if I did, he must have noticed. Shit shit shi-_

"Anything for a friend."

Keith was about to ask what he meant by that when they just met earlier that day for the first time, but as he looked up Shiro was gone.

 

The next day poured over Keith as if someone spilt it all over him when he wasn't watching.  
They had their time travelling theories in class that day and Keith had his first official day as a teacher's assistant attempting to help Shiro as much as he could. The latter was amazed at how much Keith knew about space and more than what most would know back then, a lot just sounded like confident folklore.

And then Shiro had politely asked Keith to stay behind and clean up after the boys had left.

"You seemed really interested in this idea, most find learning it a waste of time, it's just fantasy."

Keith was hobbling over the long bridge of the auditorium benches where he was stacking the leftover papers, he looked up as Shiro spoke, he was already eyeing him for an answer, pen poised as if to quickly quote his answers, though, in reality, he was just marking his student's work.

Keith came over and dropped the papers next to Shiro making the papers breath out a small sigh slipping itself through the tips of Shiro's hair. He leaned down on the desk, feeling some piece of same old, some piece of comfort again.

"Maybe, but who's to say it would never happen?"

"Oh?"

Shiro got up and walked about to stand beside Keith. Keith's heart jammed his throat with painful beats, it wasn't as if he was intruding his space, heck, if he admitted it, he would very much like Shiro to invade all his space. It was just last time they were this close he wanted to kiss him. He DID kiss him.

"We never know what is to really happen in the future, right?"

Shiro rolled his head around as he debated over this with a new angle and agreed.

"Want to talk more about your theories on the space-time continuum and all that, over drinks in my office?"

Keith was shocked by the offer, not in a bad way just…

"That is…"

Shiro locked eyes on Keith's reactions and blurted.

"Unless you don't want to, of course?"

"No."

Keith blurted back. His heart pumping fast enough to run a few fast laps around the moon.

"No?"

"I meant to say- I would love to talk to you more. I mean it."

Of course, he did he loved him and somewhere maybe Shiro felt the same way back, that was the only hope he had.

 

Was there anything to expect in that room, enriched with mountains of books, dripping old candles, a mess really, a scientific palooza, also known as Shiro's office.

"Wow…"

"Indeed."

"Quite a spectacle you got here."

Shiro made haste on accumulating all the loose papers that painted his floor with a new rug.

"Not much time to…" he picked up a certain book with a _yoink!_ "Aha! Been looking for that all week!" he muttered, "Anyway, As I was saying, no time in between classes and all that."

"Can see that."

Keith made his own way, making a path through the scatter by collecting each embellishment of the room, one by one. Shiro gave him a look, Keith couldn't read through it.

_What is he thinking?_

They later sat down, Shiro pouring whisky generously into Keith's glass and lighting up a fire making use of their typical surroundings that of a professor in the late 1800s.

One thing led to another and they spoke anything and everything about the plummeting depths of space. Keith couldn't help but reminisce out loud about his own travels, hoping against hope it would trigger something in Shiro's mind, maybe explain how he could possibly be here, alive once more.  
But nothing.  
How could he?

A few silent moments passed. Keith consciously noted the passing of time as the clock dragged its hefty hand one minute at a time, the birds chirping and chirping and then suddenly mute. Then it was the fire crackling, humming and wilting against the lack of draft.

"We should make one."

Keith interrupted the stifling air.

"Excuse me?"

"A time machine."

"You're a renowned scientist turned professor and I know more than mechanics- I know engineering too, so why not?"

"Maybe because it's all make-believe."

He got up, shaking his head in silent laughter. Shaking off the ludicrous subject.

Keith shook his own head in response, still determined. He wanted to get home, no matter how crazy it may sound he had to try every card he had been dealt with.

"Not if we have a say in it."

Shiro paused in mid-pace, he gave Keith a once over, assessing him, the same look from before, watching the clenching of Keith's fists digging the tips of his nails starkly into the armrests.

"Fine."

"Look! If we don't try then- wait, wait, hold up, you're up for it?"

"You certainly talk strange, Kogane."

"Keith just Keith." He interrupted quickly.

Shiro swatted it away, "Well, we have nothing to lose quite honestly, and it would be… fun, yes fun, to show the results to the class. Failure or success we're here for the outcome."

Keith's smile amplifies.

"Plus…"

"Plus?"

"There's something about you, Mister... Keith Kogane, something I like."

Keith's tiring heart did a somersault and somehow landed on its feet.

_Well, It's progress._

 

It was as if Keith blinked and then it was suddenly the weekend.  
He simultaneously resented it and yearned for it. He felt his heart pedal to a complete halt when thinking he would spend more alone time with Shiro, thought a small inkling of him dreaded it.  
It wasn't easy falling in love with a dead man.

The streets of London were full of hooves striking the ground in complete resolution, people's wander as hopeless and rounded as Keith's own and the sun was really well, **milking** it.  
It seemed to dim and rather spread a blanket of meek blankness on the Londoners. Maybe it had known Keith was about to settle in. It was up for a protest.

"How you suppose we do this?"

Shiro had his arm up in a demonstration of a fully blown tour guide before Keith interrupted back to his involuted idea.

Shiro glanced down at him, then stared right past him before he started to slowly form a smile.

Keith was flummoxed a little as he looked towards where Shiro was facing, laughing at what he was missing.

"What?"

"See here?"

He pointed to one of the first cars to ever wheel itself around on the streets of London. A lot of people gathered, needless to say, admiring the structure, the fumes that puffed up with mysterious black smoke and the _chugger-chugger_ chugging engine that was roaring to life in the unhealthiest manner.

The driver was presenting it much like a ringmaster at a circus with his upcoming acts.

_Come all around! To see this wonderful new spectacle! You'll see nothing like it anywhere else!_  
_One night only!_  
_One night only!_

Of course, Keith has had seen more before. Much more.

"Hm, yeah, what about it?"

Shiro looked a little too dramatically surprised.

"You're not amazed?"

"Oh. I am, just wondering… where are you getting at here?"

"Though, it's a new thing, in a way, is it not an innovation?"

"How come?"

Shiro stepped outside of the circle of people and gave a come-hither motion for Keith to follow, and so he did. They went behind the vehicle where nobody was at.

"Is it not just a wagon? Take away the horses, add this here pipes, engine, the lot and _voilá!_ "

He had his finger on his chin in thought, his gaze sliding over the fumes that were causing Keith to cough profusely.

"We need something similar- with the time machine, I mean."

Keith huffs a little.

"But that's the thing, isn't it? There isn't anything similar, we don't have anything, to begin with."

"Maybe not as close as a horse and carriage and our automobile here but we could use something that cuts time in half. This would be the main object of the machine. We need something that we know is already out there."

"Any idea of that? And what about everything else? We need to go so fast that we go into warp speed."

"Warp speed?"

Shiro had a quizzical look, head sliding to lean on one shoulder to the next, like a giant puppy. God, didn't he look cute when he was puzzled?

"Umm, you know, fast enough we break time in half basically, we don't have that type of science yet, I guess."

Shiro seemed resolute now, even more, dare Keith say it, more into the scheme of the idea than he was.

Punching his fist into his hand as a comical definitive motion to set things rolling, Shiro's plans were heading in the right direction and enthusiasm was soaring.

"Then, we make it so we do have it."

 

It was late. Very late.  
The curtains were drawn closed but needless to say, the outside was sucked from any light anyway. Moonlight or gaslight, they were plunged into a remorseful deep pit.

Back again they sat in Shiro's office. It so seemed that it was now a common place for their work gatherings.

"We can put all that there."

Shiro pointed towards the middle of the room, redecorating the place with the bits and bobs that would construct their fictitious time machine into life.

They worked on the excessive research day and night, passing the whisky among them and the papers and book soon concealed all seeable surfaces including the floor.

This happened for weeks on end, around classes, around meal times, even around sleeping at night, every inch of free time they had, they worked and they worked hard. Alas, not much of an outcome was foreseeable.

Keith soon enough got irritant, he assured himself that he had overspent his time in this era… time zone whatever- much longer than he intended and much longer than he had done so in the 50s, prior.

"We're no way near solving this!"

As usual, Shiro was caught in between a thought of almost outreaching success and jotting down mindless scribbles on paper. He was also just passing the whisky in turn before tossing the papers aside in defeat.

They were laying down.  
Side by side.  
With books, sheets of paper and blueprints scattering around them on the ground, imitating a more uh, educational daisy field as it were. Far less romantic.

Shiro paused in his readings and looked at Keith next to him who had his face in his hands in frustration.

"It takes years, decades even, for most scientists their whole lives to make such big inventions come true. Besides, are we not here for the experience, Keith?"

Keith grumbled into his hands before sighing gravely and paused only to take a long gulp from his glass.

"Can you imagine, though? We're so far but we're also close! Just that one more special ingredient, I don't know and we're there!"

Shiro started to laugh under his breath then suddenly nudged him.

"Where'd you go first? Future or the past?"

Keith didn't need to think about it, never mind his entrapment in this unsolicited time and whatever has had happened to him.

"Future."

"Oh? Well, I'd say past."

"Really? Why?"

He laughed at Keith's scrunched up face.

"Why not?"

"I dunno, don't you, a scientist- teacher, want to see all the new creations the future has to offer?"

He just shook his head.

"Sometimes we need to take a step back to see how to move forwards. There are some things in the past, amazing things really, how people got by, how they lived where they were lacking something we take for granted now, I want to see how they do it, I want to see how we can utilise those tools they had then for the better with what we have now. I want a reminder, Keith."

Keith looked pleased, amazed even. Of course, Shiro thought this way, of course.

Shiro licked back his hair with the push of his fingers, smiling astounded at the vastness of it all, at his very own thoughts.  
Keith fought every temptation to not simply snuggle into the nook of his shoulder, just lay his head there softly into Shiro's outstretched arm, feeling his muscles cushion his head as he slowly lulled into slumber.

Though, Keith did fall asleep. It was with a blanket over him on a made up bed on Shiro's armchair and not in his arms.  
Waking up to the birds breaking into ridiculous tune. This was when Shiro stepped through the door and saw Keith purring out a yawn, arms stretching to their limits.

"Sorry, I must have fallen asleep." Keith groaned as Shiro handed him breakfast and shrugged. _No problem_.

"Happens to the best of us."

The smile he gave wavered into the sunshine and the food tasted superb, Keith felt himself warm up inside out. A spark of what a domestic normal lifestyle must be like, what it must feel like when you're not getting sucked into a screaming vortex, having being stranded on a mysterious planet and getting plunged into random space pockets in time.

"How about we take a break from all this today?"

Shiro thinks for a second before he continued.

"How about the zoo?"

Keith gave him a conspicuous eye but followed suit nevertheless.

_Humour me._

 

The zoo, well the zoo back in the Victorian era, wasn't what Keith expected. It was much more different to the ones he knew so well now, though you learn something new every day, he guessed.

_Is this safe?_

He didn't want to admit it out loud but seeing all the animals going all safari free like without the decency of a jeep's interior to feign safety made him a little, well unstrung. Though it didn't seem to impact anyone else as much.

"Must be easy being an animal."

Shiro offhandedly commented as if the lion wasn't three feet away from them with nothing but a small picket fence down to its ankles to protect them.  
Nevertheless, Keith goes on, "Tell me about it."

They were beside a small cart full of snacks that Shiro so thought he'd buy Keith some generously. Keith tried not to outwardly show how affectionate he felt, the fact that this could possible be marked as their second official (unofficial?) date. Especially when Shiro spoke non-stop about the animals in such an educational manner, far from romantic for most, but to Keith? Hearing everything that Shiro knew, his vastness of intellect? It made his heart inflate tenfold.

"Know anything about chimps?"

Shiro asked Keith waiting for him to finish his bite.

"Not a lot."

He smiled as Shiro automatically proceeded into another long-winded monologue.  
Then Keth spotted a sign as they were exiting the building.

_**For one day only! The ice rink will be open!** _

"Oh look! Ice skating!"

Keith had a small love for the sport, again, not something he would promote out loud not with knowing the fact that Lance would yap on about it, never letting Keith forget. The thing is, Keith, used to take small ballet lessons here and there when he was younger, then, one day he and his dad were on the ice, skating for the first time and well like figure skaters do, he implemented the two skills together and enjoyed the best of both worlds.

"Ha, Keith I am not that good when it comes down to ice."

"Really?"

Keith nudged him in the ribs and he faked an _ow!_ and rubbed against the spot.

"Thought, you were good with everything, Takashi."

Shiro paused in his footfalls leaving Keith twirling around to check up on him on why he suddenly stopped, and maybe it was the tint of sunlight flushing through the overhead window or the trick of light completely, but Keith thought he saw a shallow reddening in Shiro's cheeks.

It was probably Keith's tireless eagerness that swayed Shiro in the end.

"Oh. Alright. Let's go."

 

"It's so friggin' cold."

They were putting on their skates, or well for Keith's part, attempting to but his numb hands stood in the way.

"Crap."

The word escaping his icy breath.

Shiro, who already sorted his own out a few moments ago…

"Here."

He got down on his knees with a small grunt and started to help out Keith. Keith watched as his heart pounded in his ears.

_Ba-dump. Ba-dump._

Shiro looked up, smiling in completion and for thoroughness, patted Keith's leg.

_Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump._

"Good to go."

Keith mumbled thanks as he glided out to the rink because as trite as it sounded, although as true it may be, his breath was a little stolen and taken away.

Somehow in the midst of everything, he forgot how good it felt to skate, how free as a bird he felt as the cold breeze slapped against his face and as he glided on the white surface making small lazy trails in the icing.

He twirled slightly and did all kinds of moves.  
Single toe loop.  
Triple toe.  
Double axel even.

On and on and on. Forgetting just one thing.

He stopped and looked at the small gate opening seeing what he expected to see, Shiro still standing there, mouth a little agape, watching from afar. Keith moved towards him.

"You coming on or are you going to stand there looking like a fish out of water."

Surely that was how he felt too.

"I- uh, Wow, you can really skate, Keith. I mean, really skate."

He smiled, He loved surprising Shiro.

"You coming or what?"

"I can't-"

Keith skated a little closer towards him, standing face to face.

"What? What is it?"

"I can't skate, remember." He mumbled a little shyly.

"For real?"

"Pardon?"

"I mean, let me show you, then."

"Um."

Shiro looked nervous but Keith helped him out. He shook a lot, to begin with, applying all his pressure on Keith's arm as he was steadying him. But then, all at once, he got the hang of his balance, the amount of pressure to apply with his weight on the ice and the use of Keith's support, and soon enough, he was gliding freely with him.

"You got it!" Keith said proudly.

Because God, didn't he feel pretty elated with how proud he was.

"Not without you standing there."

"I could do that to find out if that's true."

"No, no! Please, just stay. Just stay next to me."

_Always._ He thought.

"Sure, Shiro." was what he actually said.

There was a point when he fell and dragged Keith down with him, both laughing at the small pinching pain on their behinds, everyone staring, Shiro noticing and coughing to stop the laughter but none of the good feelings was truly gone.

 

"I had fun today. I should thank you for that."

They were now back in Shiro's office as if it was their temporal apartment they shared for the time being. And as Shiro said that, and by the looks of things, he seemed genuine with it- it only led to Keith persisting his next few words.

"No need. I should be the one thanking you."

He resigned and fell into a seat in one soft cushioned exhausted blow.

"You know, I think we're onto something."

"You don't say?"

Shiro hitched an eyebrow as he sat down more elaborately in the seat opposite.

It occurred to Keith on their way back, with the darkness pulling it's duvet covers over the large capital city and each of the streetlamps was lit one by one.

"Light. We need to be faster than the speed of light."

"That's not possible…" after some pondering Shiro issued, "isn't it?"

"You didn't think that you would be able to skate like a pro earlier today now look at you! We just need to give things a try otherwise we wouldn't be surrounded by all this," He had his arms out suggesting the whole room of wonderful inventions, "if no one gave a try, none of this would be here. It's improbable, yes, impossible? No."

Shiro looked pretty much gobsmacked and again, Keith would be lying if every time he surprised and amazed Shiro, that didn't make him feel a little like he was on top of the world.

"You really are something, Keith."

And something lit up in him, a warm flicker and glow.

"I know."

He responded with a wide-eye grin.


	6. We’re Off To The Ball!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How far would you be willing to go for the one you love?  
> (I'm asking Keith here, that boy has been through enough already, I tell you that, but asking you guys too ;)) 
> 
> We're about halfway through the whole story now I think? Hope you're all liking it so far!   
> I also hope you all have a wonderful day!

_“May I have your attention please!”_

It was a busy evening, the boys were brewing up some drama for an upcoming special event. Keith had felt a tremor, a break in the usual chatter, it was boiling and sizzling an old but refreshed excitement. It had been whistling through the hallways, excited whispers at the back of each classroom, through the wind in the courtyard at break time even. Though it was all new to him, Keith felt the buzz drill a hole in him. He was curious what all this fuss was really about.

As the universe was compacted into the university’s grand hall and all within were utterly consumed with the soon awakening of good news, Keith and Shiro, on the other hand, were in their own world entirely. Laughing and joking and hearing just that ringing against their ears, only when they noticed a sputter in the surrounding conversations, did they look up towards the front in unison. Coran was standing tall, requesting everyone’s undivided attention.

“I would like to remind you all, that it is that time of the year again! The special spring ball is coming up!”

Everyone cheers in hauntingly deep echoes that bounced about the room, but Keith was solely reminded of the dance back in the 1950s. His heart started to radiate some sort of physical pounding ache, a poisonous pain that arched through his veins, making his anxiety start, stutter and spit. He looked up towards Shiro who was admiring everyone’s else enthusiasm dancing around the bobbing heads in the room, he then found himself stared back upon, and as Shiro did so, he shook Keith’s shoulder a little with a cheesy grin gleaming against the rinsed out lights above. He was, of course, delighted by the news.

“You can bring a partner if you so find one.”

Coran interrupted once more peppering the room with his lonesome cackling laughter at his joke as he played with his ‘stache in typical evil villain demeanour.

“Remember though: **Behave yourself, lads.** ”

When everyone was dismissed after the big notice was announced and their dinner was accomplished, Keith broke away from the growling cheers of the crowd and averted himself towards the courtyard. Drifting off to only somewhere his mind could persuade him to go.

“Where are you going?”

It was Shiro.

“Just out back to get some fresh air.”

He caught up then and Keith sighed knowing what’s to come.

“May I join you?”

Keith looked at him and felt the knot in his stomach untie itself. A warm flush broke free covering his body with a warm comfort he only got when he was around Shiro.

“Sure, why not.”

 

The moon was out, high and lush blanketed by sheets of clouds that meditated by. They sat on a cold stone bench in the darkened lonesome courtyard. Silence melted into a conversation Keith wanted to avoid.

“So, how about that ball?”

“Yeah….”

Keith started to fidget in his seat feeling a little uneasy as the wind started to drift, flutter and fall.

“Not into dancing?”

_Not exactly…_

“I can’t. I can’t dance, I mean.”

He made up immediately on the spot, it wasn’t a lie _per se_ but not the whole truth either.

“Nonsense! I can teach you. Get yourself a lady before then and I’ll teach you before she needs to find out!”

Shiro winked thinking he solved the problem in one small bite.

“You must really like dancing if you think you can teach someone as impalpable at dancing as I am.”

Shiro smiled back slightly, maybe he took pity in Keith.

Maybe that was the look he always had given him when he did, but Keith never noticed that until now.

“I do,”

_He meant, how he can teach me, right?_  
  
“But I think if you can teach me to skate, I can do so also with you with dancing.”

Keith reflected that small sad smile a bit, giving in a little. It was an old feeling being resurrected in him. One he knew well time and time again. Shiro had a way of weaving in and out of Keith’s defensive system, making him feel safe to let all his guards down.

“If you really must.”

 

Shiro kept his promise and just like that, the next day was purely made for their dancing lessons or attempted dancing lessons, at least.

It didn’t need to be said out loud but there were many reasons why Keith felt absolutely terrified by all this.

Somehow… once Shiro manoeuvred Keith’s position, with a hand slowly lathered within his own and another on a hip _-shit shit shit-_ then all at once, there was a form of comfort, a sense of one puzzle piece easing perfectly into another. A smooth transition, crumbling down any rotting inhabited fears Keith had of the two of them.

He exhaled into one swift dance move and soon enough they had each other synchronised.   
One step…  
Two steps...  
And so forth.

“You’re doing great, Keith.”

“Ah… yeah, you think so?”

Keith had all eyes on his footing, complete tunnel vision. All his concentration was spent on trying with all his might not to step on Shiro’s toes. Because what if he did step on Shiro? It felt like the whole image of them perfectly in sync would crumble and fall dramatically.

“Hey…”

  
Shiro perked up Keith’s chin with one swift lingering finger.

“Eyes forward, Keith, you do not want to trip.”

His voice, purring softly much like a lullaby.

“Right. Don’t want to fall on the ground together again, right?”

_Shut up, Keith._

“ _Haha,_ well.”

Keith exhaled a laughter that, Shiro caught on as Keith rested his temple against Shiro’s falling chest. Naturally and by that, automatically.   
A thing he must have done many times before.

In his head anyway.

Keith heard a loud cough awkwardly slice through the room, an echo through the timbers of their secret forest, all coming from the man arched at the doorway. Coran.

“Gentlemen.” He nodded slightly, “Seeming as you’re new here, Professor Kogane, I would like you to meet this lovely lady for you to chaperone at the ball.”

The said ‘lovely lady’ was in a long white dress that dropped to her ankles where it curled into continuous ripples like the ocean was swirling around her feet. Her hair in ringlets falling out of its tight knotted structure, stripped from a small whirlwind. She looked free, loose, like she just ran all the way here returning from a miraculous adventure. Her eyes telling the story themselves, glistening with pure might and enthusiasm a sparkle and fleck of hidden gold. A secret always implored in her within whispers.

She stepped in or more like- floated in, her miraculous dress fluttering as she did so. Keith was caught off guard, plucked out of a dream and thrown away from Shiro’s arms into a situation he had no idea how to react to.

Shiro fell back and grew silent and Keith felt his warm form tackle his own shadow behind him in the augmenting coldness.

“Hello there. How do you do?”

She pulled out a fragile lace-gloved hand and Keith took it stiffly as he fumbled his own hand into locking into one small fimble-like handshake, as a gentleman would and should do.

“Uh hi, hello…”

But not _that_.

She gave away into an intrepid laughter at his obvious nervousness. He was unsure whether he was being ridiculed or welcomed into her world.

“Um, so do you- would you like some tea, I’m sure Shiro and I can...”

As soon as Keith called for his name while addressing the taller man with a gestured hand, said Shiro strode out of the room without forewarning or caress. He was taking out with the gust of wind and Coran was flabbergasted at the threshold not knowing what to do with oneself.

“Uhm, excuse me, I’m so sorry about this I- I have to go.”

Keith followed Shiro with a little irritation sparking at his fleeting heels. This sudden departure of his? That was very unlike Shiro, that was very much unlike the man he knew so well.

“Shiro! Stop, what’s wrong?”

Shiro did stop but he didn’t bother to turn towards Keith as he called him.

Only when he hollered for him again that Keith saw Shiro’s shoulders hitch up then fall all at once through a tired respire. He slowly turned to look at Keith with sombre eyes.

“N-nothing.”

“Seriously, man, doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Excuse me?”

Keith walked on closer gingerly, like he was afraid he would frighten Shiro off, to result in running away once more.

He took one small step closer with each word.

“What…”

Another step.

“Is…”

One more.

“Wrong?”

They were only a breath away now, feeling each other’s heat against their own skin. The itch to stretch to one another, the addiction to breathing in each other’s scent-

Shiro coughed subconsciously.

“I didn’t want to intrude.”

Doesn’t sound like it.

“Is that all?”

Shiro just simply shrugged.

“Sorry, Kogane. I have to go grab some… things for our project. I will see you in the morn.”

He spun on his heels in a flash and rushed off, his gown whipping by around the corner. Keith watched in confusion and curiosity.

_“Kogane?”_

 

The weeks flew and spun and danced to the waltz and soon enough, Keith was standing in the midst of an enriched hall full of the shimmer of gold and ice that strained his sight. He was fully dressed in a way too small tuxedo and his beautiful partner’s arm loosely and fleetingly hooked around his own like a fish ready to unlatch itself once it gets too close to the fisherman’s eye.  
  
Once again Shiro was out of his reach. Since the last time they saw each other, he had mysteriously disappeared and Keith reached deep into the depths of his mind, over thinking that he had a knack of losing Shiro again and again, emotionally and physically. ninety per cent of him believed he wouldn’t even show up to the ball at all, despite his all inspiring desire for dance.

Even though Keith only took one extensive class in ballroom dancing with Shiro, he had to believe it was enough to refrain him from any embarrassment in front of all his students, and anyway it wasn’t like his partner would take no for an answer.

There they were standing there, two sticks in the mud, swaying unenthusiastically and then tapping away at their feet slowly and rhythmically to the slow strum of melodies that swung drunk in the air and appeared to throw everyone in a hypnotic trance to _dance, dance, dance!_  
  
Charlotte, so be it the name of his partner, despite dressing more marvellously in formal wear still had that sense of airiness clung to her. She was free and full of buzzing energy, just thoroughly pulsated out of her through positive beats. She looked stunning, like turning heads kind of stunning, and Keith made sure to tell her.

One thought still dug deep into Keith’s mind. Dances were really not his thing, to begin with, let alone the tragedy that came along with it, he had every sense a fire would strike, as if a flame itself was attached to the idea of dances. He was looking around, almost a little too paranoid for it to be swatted away as normal glances.

He witnessed Coran dancing an awkward strut with everyone in a close radius laughing their heads off. Keith had half a forming thought to encourage the tides of crowds to do so, anything to push away himself being the centre of attention and looking like a downright fool.

“Come on Mister, let’s dance!”

Charlotte slightly pulled at the cuff of his sleeve until he had his own two feet running to the centre of the ballroom. It was to his own effort that he tried his very best at getting to the pattern of the dance.

“S-sorry I’m new to this.”

He spoke through jitters but Charlotte had a breathy laughter, a ringing that sang chimes in his ears and left a tingling sense altogether making you wish it lasted forever.

“New?”

She inquired, soon after as if Keith’s body wanted to emphasise what he meant, he stepped on the tips of her toes clumsily.

“ _Ow!-_ Ahem, I see… well, shall we go slowly then?”

She then took lead, counting steps in aid for Keith, under a low hush breath. Keith smiled. He felt genuinely grateful as his mind was a little too pre-occupied with other matters for such a dense style of dancing. And wasn’t it going to get a little bit more crowded in that stressed out head of his when he glanced up then to see what he saw?

Shiro. Submerged and washed in a flush of warm earthly light as if all light in the room was drawn to him as he entered through the large wooden doors. His built straining against the tight fit of his dark waistcoat, he had his jacket stowed away under his arm. A fiery rush burning through his eyes, his chest lifting and falling frantically. His hair a little tassel and thrown off its course, in this and that direction. Then a wild sense in his startling eyes as his partner whispered sweet nothings in his ear, making his smile spark and gleam glowing against the sobering wash, of the room.

_He looks gorgeous._

Keith suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“Mister Kogane? Mister?”

His mouth fell open wide in shock. Shiro led his partner to the dance floor near Keith and everything started to topple off its axis and Keith felt rather dizzy. Shiro spinning and smiling as he danced without flaws, and he glowed against the dim lights and the rush of black and white of the spinning tops as others danced in sync behind them.   
The music was pearly white with shining sweet symphonies and winding up and up and up with the tempo, and no one else was in the spotlight, nothing else could be heard. It was just Shiro, Shiro….Shiro. _Fire. Dying._

“S-sorry.”

Keith attempted to resume his dance moves but his hands kept slipping, perspiring profusely, and his legs shook and trembled making him trip and fall slightly into Charlotte a few times. A few times was enough.

“I do beg your pardon, but this is not how you should treat a lady!”

Keith felt a head-spinning sting tingling against his cheek as she slaps him. The stars that dazzled his stare soon wore off as the action broke his trance. He heard a few laughs from the students nearby thrown towards him.

He didn’t know what to do but follow the screaming voice in his head to _go, leave now!_

He sulked. Feeling sadness seep through a crack in the broken glass in his chest once more. He hated Shiro for distancing himself for all those weeks _*again*_ to only come back hand in hand with a beautiful woman and might he had, not even acknowledge him.

But he hated himself more.   
For getting stuck in this situation in the first place, and in addition, to fall in love with someone so out of reach. Again and again and again.

After all, how could he be loved by someone as prodigious, perceptive and downright amazing as Shiro when he himself was so lacking?

He sat down on the courtyard’s cold bench once again, washed in a deep setting moonlight and darkening blue sea of a sky riding the shores behind it. It somehow illuminated him and just like reaching for the sun’s heat he caressed the moon’s majestic beauty and magic as if it would so happily heal a broken heart.

He took a hip flask out of his pocket and sipped greedily at it.

“There you are!”

A calling he so hoped to hear but ultimately wanted it to be the last voice he ever heard.

“Here I am.”

He said numbly through sips without facing whom it may be. He knew who it would be too well.

Shiro swiped at the drink and instantly sat beside him uninvited. Keith stared at his hand which was still grasping the air where the flask left it cold. He blew out a whistling troubled breath before he stowed away his hand clenching his troubles into a fist.

“Something wrong?”

It was certainly weird to be out of the circle.  
The circle of raining laughter and romantic outbursts, to sit in the dawning death of day to the moons and stars alone, silence, nonchalant and almost broken in time.

It was all wrong for him.

“Not a good dancer. That’s all. Apparently, it’s the pinnacle of existing in this era.”

Keith rung his hands roughly, he hadn’t had it in him to look up yet, to look up at him.

Shiro took what Keith said as a joke and roared merrily.

“I see why you chose the future then, in hope that dances would die down, maybe?”

He was talking about the time machine, the one he ditched so suddenly and left Keith alone to do.

Keith was biting his lip tirelessly and soon his fidgeting in his leg, broke into fierce jitters.

“Something like that.”

It was all he could say, he felt… well, he felt he could break down, allow the tears to drizzle down his face and burst into a series of fistful screams into the awakening night. A wolf’s howl of anger.

But he didn’t.

He stayed quiet.

Instead, he was humming through his fidgets and irrational fears.

Shiro suddenly got up, this was when Keith first looked up at him, the moon glistening behind him, the rough edges of his face sharp with shadows and moonlight, his arm outstretched towards him as he spoke softly, dreamlike and musically.

“Let me show you.”

“What?”

Shiro slowly stepped back one step at a time, never taking his eyes off Keith, and he then calmly beckoned him.

Keith wanted to laugh it off, wave him off even, but he took another swig from his flask, a little liquid courage as it were, and got up casually as he could pull off.  
He didn’t care.  
He doesn’t care.  
Why should he?

“Here.”

Shiro inches away from Keith, a head taller, shoulders wider. He smelt like a crisp sense of the salty ocean mixed with nature. Keith couldn’t quite put a finger on it. But he liked it nevertheless.

Shiro proceeded to take Keith’s hand gently onto his shoulder and the other fell into a deep hold in his own grasp, warm and smooth. Keith felt his palms start to sweat and itch again.

“Ready?” Shiro purred into the dense air.

“H-haven’t we have done enough lessons together?”

That was a lie.   
He wanted to do anything to be this close to Shiro again.

“Maybe for you.”

_What?_

The music was now a distant echo, it sounded like it was coming out of a can, excluding much of the outer world as possible. Shiro hummed the tune, bringing the music to them, to their own small world they created in between their grasp.

He also made sure they were on beat.

“One… two… three. You’re doing great, Keith, better than you think.”

“You’re just saying that.”

He was losing the sense of thought, of how to breathe in and out, all the words escaping him in a fast slither.

“Maybe…”

Shiro placed his head slightly onto Keith’s shoulder and Keith could feel his whole body suddenly start to feel frigid. He had to put everything in him to not make himself freeze completely.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Sh-”

“Keith?”

Shiro was surprising him, he was washing away the anger he had felt only moments ago.   
Keith yanked hard and heavy at his raging side hoping to drag it all back, he couldn’t allow Shiro to keep hurting him like this, whether he meant to or not, Shiro left Keith. Again. Those were the facts.

Shiro’s head gently rolled on his shoulder as he sucked in a gust of air near the nape of Keith’s neck bringing fierce series of shivers down Keith’s spine.

The world around them was silent but to his own calling.

“Keith, you stole my everything, first my gaze as you dazzled your existence onto me, then it was your laugh- oh it took my breath away,” Keith could feel his chilling breath escape into a rejoice, “It was the way you made melodies through your elated happiness. Then lastly, you stole my heart and ate it whole.”

He looked up towards Keith. The mystery masked behind his still half-concealed face. What was he getting at?

“I would like to make a proposition.”

“Oh?”

He didn’t hear himself say it, his heartbeats were taking charge.

Shiro left his hand from his and trailed it to the back of Keith’s neck where he then started cocooning his head faintly.

“You can keep my heart if I could so happily have yours in return?”

There was a kindling silence.

“Everything Shiro, you could have my everything.”

After admitting such a thing, Keith could not imagine a happier moment than that of the flourishing delightful look that possessed Shiro’s face. They ran away from the ball and hoped to hell they didn’t get caught in the meantime.

Lying on top of Shiro’s cramped single bed, side by side, their top buttons and bow ties undone and askew, hair messy as if the mistress of the night gave them a once over except for nothing but chatter actually occurred. A newly refound talk was summoned that night as if they had seen each other clearly for the first time.

“How long?”

Keith killed their laughter with a small embellishment of seriousness.

“Hmm?”

“How long have you felt the way you feel about me?”

“Ever since I first saw you.”

Shiro caught Keith’s dancing hand in the air and entwined it in his.

Keith snorts.

“ _Wow,_ you’re such a romantic.”

“Fine, fine, fine, sounds all made up but I tell you, it isn’t! But what say you?”

“Me?”

Keith debated it for a while as he allowed Shiro to run circles on the back of his outstretched hand with his thumb.

“Hmmm, well, I heard about you before I even met you, it wasn’t then that I… but definitely then that something bloomed. I knew I had to get to know my _hero_.”

He inwardly cringed at that, _hero,_ but it was nevertheless true.

He was imagining the Shiro he knew, the one he _really knew,_ the one that had his arm sawed off brutally in that POW camp, the one that found his way all the way back to Keith, the one who took charge of Voltron and saved his ass countless of times, the one that twisted and fell as he was spat out of that vortex into whatever godforsaken place they were in now in real time.

“Hero? That’s a bit too much…”

Shiro joked as he nudged Keith’s side with his elbow.

“You better go before people find out, and you know…”

Keith suddenly felt an ache he didn’t want to address. He also suddenly felt a sudden cold rush take over to get away from Shiro, away from everyone and everything. He didn’t know what it was, though he had a feeling, a saddening feeling that this time, this reality it was not his to live in.

Shiro groaned loudly.

“Just a little longer, please Keith.”

He continued his act by feigning to snore.

“Quit it!”

Keith nudges him this time trying to hold a straight face.

“Ow, ow, okay!”

He got up deliberately slowly, groaning in protest in the meantime, and as he was about to close the door he looked back towards him.

“This isn’t the end of all this, Keith. I’ll come back again and again.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Though Keith still had that thought clawing at the back of his mind, a sort of disbelief, an insecure weak idea, another thought took form. Why did Shiro disappear and suddenly become so open about his feelings now?

  
Keith found himself once more in Shiro’s office, again alone with his tinkering and the smears of paperwork and equipment littering the place.

It was chipping away into later hours of the day when Keith had an idea as incredulous as any other. He found out what they could have possibly been missing for the time machine. He- they are close now to making the time machine whole, once and for all. Both elated and sad about this matter, Keith flew out of the university doors because, despite everything, he must tell Shiro the good news!

But when a little déjà vu happened for the first time that night, little did he know then that a lot of a repeat would happen once more.

“Watch it!”

_Shit!_

He crashed into Coran as he swayed around a corner of the street in front of a crooked pub.

“Uh, sorry,”

He made haste through his nimble words. He must find Shiro.

“Have you seen Sh- uh, professor Shirogane, anywhere?”

Coran once again started to dust himself from the sudden obstruction.

A little distracted with averted eyes he goes, “He was shopping I think, that way.”

Coran pointed down towards a dark lit cobblestone lane, breaking into an even darker mouth of a tunnel.

“Thank you!”

Keith rushed, excited, he was excited, he had to be. How long did it take to get this far with the time machine? It was also, more importantly, one more step to finally getting home.

“Careful next time!- He’s not listening is he, does he ever listen?”

And lo and behold Keith spots the glistening white streak of hair under a weeping gas light.

“Sh-!”

_“Give me your money!”_

A booming unhinged voice trembled the night.

“Okay, okay, just calm down now.”

_That was Shiro._

“GIVE IT NOW, DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

“Okay, so-sorry...s- no!”

Something sharp was injected into Shiro’s abdomen.   
Keith screamed.  
He screamed, hoarsely and broken.

He ran towards Shiro, tipping side to side, his mind drunk on panic and incomprehension.   
He half considered chasing after the man in full flight and fury but he stopped in his tracks as he noticed Shiro hadn’t moved an inch.

_Oh no no no no not again, no…_

Keith reached out to his bleeding wound, flowing and spurting in full spittle movement. Blood warming Keith’s shaking hands, swimming in a red ocean on Shiro’s torso.

The red pool was spreading, bathing and wetting Keith’s knees.

“Shiro  _please!_ ”

“Keith…”

He smiled lamely, a frail hand catching Keith’s lips where he rouged the parting with his own blood in an attempt to grasp at his face one last time. A tear trickled down Shiro’s eye before he closed them for good.

“Don’t leave me. Shiro! Not again, no...no.”

A spark caught Keith’s eye. _The blade_. He picks it up, his hands shook furiously. This is what the bastard stabbed Shiro with numerous times.

_It... it looks familiar?_

_Wait..._

“How can this be?”

But then all of a sudden, there was a blinding pain in his temples, like it was cracking his head wide open only to dump a swarm of wasps on him before… before his sight became blurry around the edges and he knew this scene too well. _Fuck, no, not this! Not now!_ He fell to the damp ground, to the pitch darkness and the growing tinkering silence, and Keith dripping out of consciousness. Until nothing.

 

A blinding light poured warmly and brightly making Keith see red instead of black. He woke up from a thudding _thump!_ colliding against the crown of his head. Keith found himself in a crumbling brown tunnelled hole, a trench more specifically, sitting on a very uncomfortable crate. He looked up towards the suspect of the crime, the butt of their gun inches from his head, ready to make another move on him. He watched the silhouette being radiated from the sun behind them.

And through the blurring edges and the blotches of blinding coloured lights, Keith attempted to clear his sight and when he did, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

It was Pidge!

“Pidge?!”

He questioned the shadow. She zoomed into his face real nice and close, as she smirked eagerly.

Winking, she shushes him cheekily.

“The one and only! Now get your sleepy head up out of your arse before we get into trouble.”

 

_Where am I?_

 


	7. Rusty Bayonets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, there is more graphic violence and depictions of blood and gore in this chapter due to warfare themes.
> 
> I have posted the exact amount of chapters there are for this work now, I'm thinking it might change into ten in total but as for now it's worked out to nine (though, it bugs me it's not a round number).  
> This was a tough one to write for a number of reasons so I hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> I do not mean any disrespect by writing this chapter.

_Scared._  
_I am scared. I was before but it has gotten worse now, far worse. Scared of the subliminal internal chatter eating me raw. The questionable murmurs that quench the quakes rumbling in my ears one minute and makes my whole head scream the next. The lingering shadows that smother me, consume me from behind. My heart speeding up and down the length of my rib cage like it’s a race track. The way your smile now drops at the sight of me, as a dying flower would frown with no light. You no longer are swept away by my sight but scorn at it. The way you despise my scar-scorched body as if it were your own ugly self inside. I am terrified but there’s no one answer for why._  
_But maybe… it’s just you._

 

There was a time when Shiro and Keith spent long winded nights alone, where the air was humid and thick with longing for something they yet knew of. Keith, of course, knows now, the unspeakable something that roared echoes of wanting between them that started a very long time ago.

They would sit on the blood red sandy dunes watching the many moons simmer in its purplish glow, the specks of sand would rain as the gust of wind breathed and they would feel that tingle of desperation run between their naked toes. The two would not only watch as the sky turned into a dying light, unearthing unshakeable darkness but they would also admire each other when one was looking and the other was turned. Their eyes full of wonder and broken stars. Two lost souls and tortured minds found together as one. Words that were unspoken between them stronger than what was said out loud. It was maybe then, Keith truly had felt that _something_ for Shiro.

The next day though Shiro left for the Kerberos mission, leaving Keith in a mere flicker of a light. And those tangible broken, fallen eyes fading, his smile that shined so brightly dulled weakly in Keith’s memory as the days walked on by.

Keith had never given up on Shiro’s return but when Shiro did come back in an unlikely crash, an angel falling to its death, Keith had that one thought in mind: _Got to get to Shiro, I must see him at least once more._

Well, when he did just that and the two fortuitous soulmates end up clashing together once again, something was different. Off. It was not the same as it was before and Keith feared he had lost that _something_ for good.

 

Keith felt his breathing speed up to the beats of the bullets that were plummeting around him. Sweat had been quickening its fleet to dribbling down his forehead.

He instantly looked at his hands. Clean and clear. No sign of blood running down the length of his arms. Nothing. He felt sick nevertheless. His body infirm where the riddling feeling pumped up balls of nausea gas running up his throat.

He scratched at his clean hands, rubbed hard against his palms as if to scrub away the invisible scorch and the sour scent of Shiro’s warm blood pouring through his fingers. He had a little sense as to what Lady Macbeth was going through.

A scream was caught in his diaphragm washed with the gurgling touch of fears promising to silence him.

To see Shiro being murdered feet away from him. The worst of it was that it felt avoidable at that point, something he felt he could have prevented if he had tried. Really tried. There was a gnawing sense that he left Shiro there to be ridden away from him again because of his own selfish reasons.

And now? Now he’s here, again. Stuck in the same old bullshit. _Again_. And he just didn’t know how to react, to respond, to even feel anymore, to now see, Pidge, one of his best friends standing right in front of him fully dressed as a soldier plucked from World War One.  
That can’t be right, can it?

Keith laughed cynically as he dragged a clammy hand over his tired beaten face.

No. He was no longer a sceptic, he was pretty sure he’s stuck in World War fucking One.

_Shit._

The lingering men about Keith were quick to their staggering feet. It was Pidge’s forceful hand that also got Keith to mimic his new brothers in arm.

A Captain- their Captain, he supposed he was, as Keith squints through the delusion that was his new reality, made his rounds to check up on the men and the latest and most current situation. Keith wanted to also know himself.

“Alrigh’ lads, this is it. Keep working hard and we might just make it out this war by Christmas!”

They all saluted at him and shouted a yes, sir! with eager and feisty grins. Not one but Keith had his arms still slumped and his shoulders drawn closed and slack, as his whole body pulsated futile distraught. There were many reasons for his distaste in the faux camaraderie that untimely presented itself to Keith. He also knew that this was just a charade to keep the morale up, keep the men fighting their war and not their own, he heard and seen it all done before. Kerberos. When at the first flicker of sight, Shiro looked good as dead, they knew more than they lead on. What lies had Keith been fed but didn’t believe when everyone else did?

Pidge jumped in midair in full aroused euphoria. Keith catches her arm to steady her as she landed back down on earth right into the splurge of putrid, murky water that swelled around their ankles. She was eager, too eager.

“Keith!”

She spun around to him as if just realising he was standing there. Gripping his shoulders securely, her lips curled into a twitch, she started whispering frantically in sheer excitement through the corner of her mouth.

“We’re so close now! Christmas!”

Keith gave away to a small smile.

“Yeah, Pidge….”

He couldn’t say much else, he was a little too distracted.

 _God._ He had no idea what to do. He barely was able to keep himself in, close to busting out of his seams. How could he really stay sane after all that? Seeing through Shiro’s death twice, now through the universe’s serious take on sadistic humour has landed him amid a place full of death. He has now plummeted to the thick of it. He could even smell the foul fetor of necrosis and fatality as he stepped foot into this new world.

How could he be surrounded with that right now with everything that just happened to him?

What sin had he really committed to deserve such a thing?

Keith felt thin fingers lace harshly around his biceps, making him jump out of his skin, through his nervous jitters, his weapon shook loosely in his grip.

It was a dirt-smeared soldier that grabbed hold of him, a comrade of his. Every word that left the man, was as if life had escaped him and just before he left, he came out with the reason he was there.

“Oh, and the Lieutenant is lookin’ for you, mate.”

Before Keith could respond, the man trudged up the unbalanced wooden duckboards, kicking loose stones away from under the heels of his boots, muttering violent incoherent nonsense about having to do everything around here.

Keith looked back at Pidge for reassurance? Clarification? Anything, just anything. Instead, she gave him a worried look in return, making an air motion with her finger to her throat, slicing it, only making Keith gulp nervously.

He did what he could to ignore her dramatics, after all, it couldn’t be that bad, right?

He headed down towards the LT’s quarters through a crude dirt path, following makeshift signs leading the way.  
  
It was dingy and drab, the biting draft tickled below Keith’s knees and he could almost feel the sound of the dripping of water through the gaps in the wooden planks above and the sandbags within the breastworks falling ever so slightly under the pressuring weight of moisture.

Hearing his own breathing escalate and pound at his ears cowed at his imagination.

Keith had no time to grasp, no time to escape it was all go go go from here and that’s exactly what he wanted to do, except the other way round. He wanted to go and run away, far far away. He needed some time alone, time to think, time to be consumed by his own grief and mourning that roared in his chest to be let out and free but all he got was much worse.

Keith made his way through the opening that dipped low, low enough to hit the top plank square in his forehead.

“Shit!”

He squawked under his breath as he rubbed his raising bruise.

He looked through his pain at the man behind the desk, amid the hazy orange light that glowered about his -you guessed it- white streak of hair like a halo.

Keith croaked under his breath, the pressure of a concrete block weighing down in his throat.

“No...no...”

Why?

He shook his head side to side in disbelief. A roll of queasiness seesawed in his stomach, displeasing his whole body, making his motion thrown off and a spell of dizziness took over.

Shiro. The Lieutenant so it seemed, detected Keith coming in and glanced up from his paperwork that was cluttering his desk. It broke Keith’s trance into a full fit panic attack. His breathing intensified sharply, a pain in his chest making him stagger and his mind was swept by a multitude of horrific images.

“Kogane, is it?”

He was dumbfounded. You don’t just talk casually through a panic attack, heck, talking casually was the least of Keith's worries right then.

Nothing could liquefy the block that was repleted in his throat. So he settled with a slow, gradual nod. Keith’s glare melting with hot singing tears.

“Is that a yes, soldier?”

“Yeah.”

He struggled.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, sir.”

Keith corrected, going absolutely crazy and trapped within his own mind.

Shiro points to the seat in front of him and Keith stared at it trying to figure out through the masses of clouds of unclarity that clogged his mind on what Shiro could possibly want with that chair.

_Sit on it, doofus._

Keith took it awkwardly and couldn’t help but look everywhere about the room, anything than look at Shiro directly. In the end, he settled with looking at the rise and fall of Shiro’s chest as he breathed and the polished buttons embellished there. The steady rhythmic beat, the slow rise like the thin tide in the ocean in the middle of the day, closing in then falling back smoothly. It was hypnotic, calming and almost therapeutic enough to completely calm him out of his straining panic attack.

He wasn’t too sure how to feel. Here. With Shiro. Right before him and once again very much alive, his mindset to nought all over again. How are you meant to feel about seeing the one you love bleed to death in your arms, to then be resurrected with a whole new mindset? How to act when you see him again and then having to pretend nothing happened. That you haven’t been brought to the end of the universe to be secluded and tormented, again and again, to only be brought back as if everything was fine?

“Heard you’ve been acting funny all day.”

 _Not the first time I’ve heard that._ Keith thought to himself bitterly.

Shiro watches him closely, latching his hands together in front of him only reminding Keith of the time, where what seemed forever ago, when he was getting told off with the rest of Rebellious Rites, the Greasers gang he was in, in the principal's office.

He watched the strain as Shiro’s uniform jacket tensed around his muscles in his arms.  
Was Keith flustered by that or the fact that a fever maybe breaking out from all the stress and shear franticness of the whole scenario bestowed on him?

He didn’t know how he felt about anything anymore.

“You’ve been doing utterly nothing all day. No cleaning of weapons, tidying the trenches and now? You haven’t been on look-out while asked to Stand-to. Made all the other lads do it for you.”

“I- I’ve been a little preoccupied.”

Keith responded lamely, he expected that hot-wired stare glaring down on him as of that moment.

“Yeah? Think the rest of us haven’t got it as hard as you?”

Keith winced at Shiro’s sudden harsh tone. He suddenly felt pissed off by that comment. _Yeah well, it’s more than that, more personal than that._ He straightened himself up, drew in a deep breath feeling his anger pop and looked straight at Shiro’s stern face.

But something stopped him entirely.

He had a scar.  
His real right arm is gone and now replaced.  
The different variations of Shiro kept popping up in each time pocket and Keith didn’t know how or what to make of it but a small gasp escaped his breath omitting the fully fueled anger that was bubbling within.

“It’s not like that.”

He centred himself, absolute.

_Don’t let yourself get distracted, Keith. What does it matter whether he looks exactly like the Shiro you know?_

It mattered a lot for many reasons but Keith swept all of them under the rug.

“Out with it then.”

Shiro wasn’t here to play games. He was a true war broken leader of a platoon for a reason and he couldn’t be that while being a complete softy all the time.

Keith fumbled with an excuse, looking about his eyes caught upon the letters scattered across the surface of the desk Shiro was leaning on.

“I got a letter from back home… Somebody,” His voice strained, “I cared a lot about- they passed away recently.”

It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t. Was it though when the man you believed to be dead is sat right in front of you?

Suddenly and amazingly, Shiro’s dark orbs for eyes that possessed his usually soft warming stare and demeanour, eased and glowed. The way Keith saw them last before he was gone from the loss of blood spewing from his broken cut up body.

“Look. Why don’t you get some sleep for the rest of the day and tomorrow bright and early, you work hard, alright?”

Keith nods, afraid his words would once again tremble and betray him.

 

There were very little real places to sleep in the cold litter-filled trench. The skittering rats had more of an authority around here on these grounds than the soldiers had. Keith had just about settled into his dugout, a cramped up spot dug through the caked muddy walls of the trench when the lice soon invaded his clothing making the night terse with sleep from the rashes and dampening surroundings as the rain poured and clouded his vision through the carved out hole. To top it off, as Keith grunted while rolling in his “bed” the latrine was only a few feet away making the air thick with putrid malodorous stench, making his nose wrinkle inwards and his whole face recoil.

Word got out that Keith was having a harder time than any- He also had a doubt that Pidge pumped that rumour fat and full with even more bullshit. Turns out he lost half his family. But whatever. Because now he was able to sleep through his shifts accommodated in the filthy, stinkin' place.

Keith cried that night. Cried enough to feel entirely empty inside. He couldn’t hold the dam of tear any longer and allowed them to silently escape through the creaks of earthly bombings and loud casual fleeting gunshots overhead.

“Keith?”

Pidge’s soft voice travelled from her dugout to his, but he let it fade into the loud rustling of background noise as he viciously wiped away at his face, turning towards the other small wall to sleep.

 

  
The world turned into a bustling amber and burnt light blue when the clocks ticked to 5 am and they were sent to their routine orders to Stand-to.

It was a new day, and as agreed Keith did whatever he could to fit in.

Later on, Keith and Pidge were found smoking outside sitting on their crates with their rifles propped against the crumbling mud wall behind them. Rings of smoke fumed the air swimming in its caliginous form. Pidge stuck a fumbling hand into her pocket to come out showing Keith a spiffing picture of her brother, Matt.

Something was bothering Keith, it was how she got through to hiding her true identity just like that, how she did similarly when they first met and started to form Voltron, but in a way, he had a hunch that he knew her brother had always been the centre of whatever she did.

“I know I always talk about him but hey, I don’t think I showed you a photograph of ol’ Matty yet.”

Keith felt his face drop seeing the almost identical siblings together so closely in the photo. Knowing full well that real Pidge out there was still worried about her own brother.

He wanted to ask, he had to.

“I forget, why’d you join?”

She pouts at him, how many times did he ask this already?

“To prove that I can do what my brother is doing, what my father is doing! That I can be just as good no matter if I’m a- you know... and help our country in return! I love this. I mean I want to help every way I can, Keith!”

Keith puts his arms up in surrender and mouthed _okaaay_. He looked around making sure no one heard what they were talking about.

“Alright, sorry. Crappy memory you know?”

She sighs but smiles as she stowed away the photo in her breast pocket and patted it for good measure.

Shiro strides into Keith’s focus and everyone in lazy unison got up and saluted their Lieutenant as he walked towards where Keith and Pidge sat.

“Kogane.”

“Sir?”

Shiro smiled down awkwardly nodding to himself.

“Mind if I have you for a moment?”

“Not at all, sir.”

Keith would be lying to say he got over his mourning over Shiro fast. Seeing him pay more attention to him? Well, it only made it much worse.

 

Keith found himself once again in the LT’s quarters, in the same seat, receiving the similar jitters that were entrapped in his body from the day before consuming him once again.

Shiro surprised him by opening a crate he just realised was there in the dark corner, and came out with two glistening glasses. He then poured a mysterious dark plunging drink, winking at Keith as he did so making Keith’s mind rattle with confusion at the huge change of personality.

“Shouldn’t have this considering we’re rationing and all but hey thought we both should have a talk about the things you’re going through and we need any aid we can get.”

Keith mumbles thanks as he received the filled to the brim drink, which he then found out to be a very strong rum as he sniffed it and instinctively wrinkled his nose.

“Why me?”

“Excuse me?”

Keith leaves the drink at the side, fully aware he already felt sick with emotion, to gulp down anything else that would pursue the sensation further seemed crazy.

“I’m not the only one here who's lost someone, so why me?”

Shiro shrugs nonchalantly.

“You caught my eye, I guess. Can’t lose my best soldier out there due to something all the way back home.”

_Favouritism, much?_

Keith smirks, just as well, of course, this would happen.

“So what’s on your mind?”

Shiro inquires as he shuffles closer to Keith and takes a long swig from his drink.

Keith’s whole body twitched feeling the inches between them slowly disappearing little by little.

“Well.”

Keith adjusted himself in his seat. Might as well open up, how can it hurt, right?

“Like I said yesterday, someone I lost someone I care about, a lot- it’s just they were out of my grasp beforehand... again and again. I feel like I had lost them already at the time. I never admitted to how much they meant to me in the end, not enough anyway. How much I owe them for all their support, the endless caring, the love and endearment they put into me and I threw it all away. I lost them and I’m afraid I’ll keep on losing them.”

It didn’t make much sense to Keith so he didn’t know how Shiro would make of it. But this was his confession, him opening up, truly for the first time. All blurted out into the world with no take backs.

Shiro thinks on this for a moment as he refilled the little amount of drink Keith had in his glass. He reluctantly took a swig out of manners and instantly regretted it, hearing the gurgling of his stomach.

“Kogane, if I may throw in my two pence here.”

Keith clears his throat, clogged again from emotions.

“Not at all.”

“Though I don’t know the full sentiment of this situation, I do believe you’re wrong. I am sure, the way I hear the other boys speak about you anyway, how you outwardly express your feelings, maybe not in the most conventional manner but by all means outwardly nevertheless. I am sure that the person you speak dearly of, knew very much how well you think of them.”

Keith was quite astonished and endeared by what Shiro had to say. After all, this was all about him in the end.

“You really think so?”

Shiro beams, bringing his glass into half raised motion as if to cheer.

“I know so.”

Though Keith took what Shiro said to heart, all the words were sifted through without emotion because Shiro had already died twice, it was as if every time he did so would affect Keith more and more. It was taxing enough to make him cry and scream through his nightmares as he fell asleep during his night patrol later that evening.

 

The next day didn’t feel any better for Keith.  
In a way it felt like Groundhog’s day, it felt the same clockworks clog on by despite the change of scenery and clothes, it was all the same in the end.

“Heard from some guy that you rattled them out of their boots last night. Keith, you getting worse?”

Pidge sat down beside him on the floor. He didn’t look up, he had his head low between his hitched up legs, lounging his arms against them. Avoiding what was conversing above him.

“Not getting any better, that’s for sure.”

Pidge had squeezed his arm in reassurance. That’s the thing about Pidge she could be quite some friend when you needed her the most. She was there, she was always there.

Keith had a hunch she was about to say her usual, “I got your back, Keith, no matter what” pep talk but she was ushered away by a bellowing voice beckoning a selective amount of soldiers around.

“Pidge, you’ll be following the rest of the Sweepers out through no man’s land. The others will be staying behind for covering fire as you all go over the line in an attempt to breach the Germans for more intel.”

Keith panicked, skirting looks towards his friend who was already bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, rifle saddled across her shoulder. She was ready after all this is what she had been waiting for all war, a piece of the action. Show everyone what she’s made of.

“Come back safe!”

Keith called out alarmed, getting his own rifle ready to shoot the face off anyone aiming towards his friend, as if they would know their schemes straight off the bat.

She looked back at him as she was climbing the first rung of the wooden ladder, and smiled with one of her known goofy beams.

“You know I will!”

She shouted before she went over completely. Keith hurried along after to get his own position ready not knowing what to expect.

 

Hours rolled on by like it was lasting for days and Keith had been firing his anger through each fast bullet until the day cascaded into the night and very few men made it back.

Of course, Keith kept on firing but had one eye on the lookout for Pidge’s pwn safe return.

Keith waited and waited, and waited still but Pidge didn’t come back like the others had.

He even made sure to take the night patrol again and was abruptly awoken once more by screaming as his eyelids started to quiver and roll to sleep. This time it wasn’t his own screams that pierced through the ushering night.

He knew that voice anywhere, in distress or not.

_“Pidge?”_

He questioned the thinning, quiet air in a low hushed voice in fear of breaking the silence between the two sides.

His panic washed over him again in a flood as the screaming turned into a low gurgle like she was strangled by her own blood.

Keith paced back and forth meditating between two crazy thoughts.

1\. Stay where he was, stick with the orders he was given and watch the line but ultimately allow his friend who’s alone out there in the cold dangerous swamp of No Man’s Land and get eaten by her own trajectory of screaming calling to be killed.

Or

2\. Leave. Go now. Find her and somehow patch her up enough to get back in time before the crack of dawn. That is if they didn’t die before hand.

Of course, knowing Keith.

He chose the latter.

Stealthily he edged into the opening under the makeshift bridge next to the dugouts, seeing the candle light flicker on and off hauntingly as a few men babble on their own deficit of sleep attempting to rest with the little time they have. Keith reached for the medic’s bag that hung on a chair close to the opening. He knew this was needed in rescuing Pidge.

As he shuffled both his weapon and medic bag onto swinging it on his back, he looked side to side of the trench and slowly above, making sure no one was about before he started leopard crawling across the tired wisps of barbed wire that got thrown off course but also making sure not to land on anything like mines or undetonated grenades. That would help no one. All the while he kept his eyes peeled for Pidge. Expecting the worst. Her crippled body thrown in irregular angles, blood leaking out her mouth, ribs sticking out of her body like animal claws. Jagged and askew. Guts pulled out of her torso area-

_Okay, Keith shut it._

The screams felt like they were surrounding him, throwing him off course to the left then to the right. They were eerie and heightened and making Keith’s heart pump full with adrenaline and fear mingling his frustration.

What he didn’t know until later was while he was following the trail of the irregular wailing that came and went, someone was following him in his stead.

Keith slithered further still, reaching out to any hope and wisp of light he could get. He felt for the ground, the slimy squelch of the mud made its way into something softer yet a firmer form, a fleshy mass unmasked itself in the deepening night, _is- is that a leg?! PIDGE?!_ Keith hastily reached towards the sphere of a head that was intermingled into its hard helmet.

“Pidge?”

Keith whispered as he got a closer look and-

“ARGH WHAT THE FUCK?!”

In his hands was a frail head, the skin flaking off and the sockets filled with flesh eating maggots squirming where the eyes should have been. Keith gulped, the quiver of his lip breaking into his teeth's chatter. He gingerly checked the dog tags in fear for the worse.

Frederick Manning.

_N-Not Pidge. Keith keep it together._

Keith moved on as quickly as he could in pure revulsion. He finally reached a hole, feeling his whole body shake with exertion and lack of sleep. His breathing was hard to come by and he felt his mouth dry up with thirst. He inwardly punched himself for not taking a canteen on his trip. He suspected Pidge needed one more than he did.

As he rested his eyes shut for two short seconds -he counted- he heard the distant ricochet off one small gun firing, bullets flitting through the night sky, a whizzing of a fly with a deadly cause. It was muddy and cold but he wanted to sleep so so badly, he could just sleep now...

“Private!”

Shiro’s low shout of disapproval shook him to wake.

“SH-Sir?! What the fuck you doing here?!”

Shiro, through the shit they currently were in, still had a look of disapproval at Keith’s cursing. Of all things.

“That’s my question for you!”

He shimmied down the hole so he didn’t need to shout whisper at Keith but scream straight to his face instead, which in Keith’s account was far worse to deal with right now.

“Get back to your position, soldier, this instant or so help me!”

Keith was heaving, he didn’t care if he was shot at dawn, all that mattered was Pidge was alright in the end. He had nothing to lose anymore. Everything he cared about keeps on dying anyway.

He closed his eyes and breathed out the lasting residue of anger he had tied to him like chains.

“I can’t.”

“What?”

Shiro looked at Keith incredulously and he didn’t blame him, he did just go against a direct order.

“I said I can’t. Pidge is out there. Still alive! You have no idea- you never did, you were always the leader, always the highest ranking of something! And you don’t know what it’s like when the rules defy you like this when you have to see your friend disappear out of thin air when everyone said they’d be fine, to get captured, tortured!”

His fear was out of his reach, Keith was in full hysteria mode and he had no temptation to rake it all back in and simmer down, because why should he when he could utilise it to shout at this Shiro, any Shiro is still Shiro that needed to hear him out, hear the frustration he so caused.

“Kogane… What are you on about?”

He didn’t get it that Keith was setting all his own reality’s frustrations on him. Shiro made him feel too much pain and well, Keith had stacked it all up in a jar and it was ready to finally be let out.

“Look, never mind. You’ll never get it.”

“Are you delirious? Been gassed on the way here? Are you going to keep disobeying my direct order, Kogane?”

Keith ran his fingers through his filthy hair, filtered with bits of mud and god know’s what else before placing back his tin head helmet.

“Yeah how about that, I guess I am.”

Shiro was reddening, he was about to explode.

Keith even squinted an eye knowing what’s to come.

Until, until he didn’t. He didn’t shout or point fingers at Keith.

“Look. It’s too dangerous right now, being this tired- not just you but me too, let’s just rest first, alright?”

He still had that inexorable look mixed in his eye. Keith agreed to this knowing there was nothing else to it, his hands were tied when the Lieutenant was there staring down at him. Watching...

Soon after, Keith nodded off, or so Shiro thought. When he made sure Shiro was snoring authentically, he leaves him alone, making sure he was kept low enough in fear of more shots being fired and he went off to continue his search for Pidge.

But he heard a crack.

A whipping swirling high pitch noise torpedoing by as he fell into another deep hole swallowing his form from enemies’ sight.

“Shit!”

It was a bullet, close enough to make his ear bleed freely from the close proximity.

“You still want to go for it even after that?”

Keith whirled around to see Shiro’s _I told you so_ face.

_Great, just what I needed._

“Fuck, you going to leave me alone?”

He went to touch his ear and dark red liquid oozed onto his fingertips.

He swore again under his breath.

“Why’d you care so much if I die?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Keith was getting irritated now.

“I like you a lot, Shiro. So much it burns inside out and I feel my skin is itching like crazy, I feel like I’m being torn in two.”

He was fractured with intense feelings, tears and blood escaped him willingly, he was only held together by withering tape, now peeling off, leaking excess emotions.

Shiro was confused, it was obvious, struck between the beginning of a sentence and its end.

“But-”

“But we don’t know each other right? You’re a Lieutenant, I’m a Private, we’re-”

Well, it’s forbidden love in all its ways, right?

There was a huge silence slicing through his words sinking into whatever was held between them.

“You really mean all that?”

Keith had to admit that was not the answer he expected, a little bit more on the mellow side even.

“Yeah. You going to get me shot or something?”

He was all in or nothing right now.

“Why- Why would I?”

Keith gave him a funny look.

“Why not? I just confessed to you my love and desire, it’s all forbidden shit or whatever. Especially in the army right?”

There’s more gunfire in the distance, lighting up the sky with lambent swift fireflies.

“Look. Let’s talk more about it when we get back.”

There was a mixture of something mingled in Shiro’s face that Keith could not quite put a finger on. But he didn't think Shiro hated him. _Thank, god_. He wasn’t sure if he could take any more of that one.

“I’m not going back without Pidge.”

Still resolute. He didn’t come all the way nearly getting shot in the head for nothing.

Shiro just looked tired, resigned even.

“You’re not going to give up on all this easily are you?”

Keith gave him a cocky grin.

“Never.”

A troubled sigh escaped Shiro but Keith caught a small fleeting smile escape him.

“At least let me help you with that.”

He pointed towards the graze on Keith’s ear.

“And that.”

Then points at his forehead.

Keith didn’t know about the second injury, he didn’t remember getting hurt there at all. He touched lightly on his forehead and winced. Why was it that he always got hurt on his head?

Shiro took away the medic kit from Keith and gently cleaned and patched up Keith’s wounds. Each of his breath humidifying Keith’s face like a rhythmic beat.

“There.”

“Thanks, LT.”

He whispered, no more shooting just their breathing in the distilled air. He wondered if he would ever not feel that elated sensation he always got when he was touched by Shiro. A faint graze against his skin, the brush of their shoulders still gave him wondrous emotions to ponder upon.

Keith was caught in the atmosphere, in between one emotion to the next and Shiro still had one lingering touch on Keith’s face.

Maybe….

Maybe something…

Shiro looked like he was slowly closing in, they didn’t take their eyes off each other. His fingertips gripping gently into small strokes on Keith’s nimble chin.

They hear a scream so loud and real full of thirst it make Keith jump and Shiro instantly took a few paces back. Keith felt the cold wind take him in a tight embrace. Shiro’s fingers now ghosting along his cheekbone were still very much there.

It turns out the scream was right next to them in close range.

They both exchange a knowing look and hastily crawled towards the knifing sound slicing whatever they were having into rubble.

Keith saw her first and rushed to Pidge’s aid in the knick of time to save her.

“Pidge! You alright buddy?”

Her ankle was gnawed off by the scraping of the barbed wire that entrapped her whole leg. She also had her arm being nursed in her bloody hand.

“Been better, oh it’s the Lieutenant too!”

She looked like she had lost a lot of blood, seeping in and out of consciousness because of it.

Shiro got closer and spoke to Pidge calmly. He didn’t need to see the deep wounds to know she was about to be lost for good, he could hear it in her breath, dying from the old enthusiasm that was usually encaptured within it.

“How are you doing, Pidge?”

She nods in pain and winced.

Keith looks towards Shiro frantically, panicking as he did what he could to treat the wounds.

“How do we bring him back?”  
  
Keith was sweating but felt a tear drip down from his nose. When did he start crying?

Shiro was touched by the concerned look that masked Keith’s face and pats his shoulder, squeezing just enough to say more than words could. _Pidge will be fine, trust me._

And after his eyes took a few shots around their environment, Shiro looked like he was struck by an idea.

“Leave that to me.”

Shiro brings out a blanket he had stashed in his webbing and finds a piece of a wooden plank that flew from the mortar explosions earlier. He then combined the two together and gently placed Pidge on top of it.

Keith’s mouth was agape staring at the ingenuousness of it all.

Shiro took no time for breaks. “You drag and I’ll cover from behind.”

Keith nods, taking the cloth in a tightly fixed grip, making sure Pidge would not fall off along the way back. They moved through the intervals of gunshots that rained down upon them.

As Keith sheltered his sight through the firing, he noticed the sky being slowly drained from its eternal darkness.

“We have to hurry it’s almost daylight!”

On queue, they moved faster and more diligently.

And with a few more straddling crawls, a few more close calls, soon enough, Keith had the bobbing heads of his astonished comrades in sight.

They had hurried towards the beckoning hands taking Pidge’s tormented body down into the trench first. Keith was also about to follow suit. They made it. All the way, through the night. When he hears it before he felt it. Maybe not even that, call it a sixth sense. He just knew.

“Keith!”

Shiro had slammed his body hard against his own as a storm of bullets flew on by, a few more after Keith thought to himself, _stop no more!_ hitting deep like pellets into Shiro’s unprotected back.

Shiro literally took a bullet for Keith.

_He saved me._

“SHIRO!”

Keith slammed both them down to the ground, twirling to see his front. He shook him hard.

Only inches away Keith felt one finger rushing to his lips, again. All over again.

“You’re a great soldier... Keith. You’d make an even better leader.”

He cups Keith’s head in his bloodied shaking hands and drags him down with the little force he had left into a deep desperate kiss, Keith would never forget. The swooping forcefulness of their crushed lips mingled with their draining tears and the iron rust of fresh blood. Shiro’s eyes then closed shut.

Keith’s crying howled through the break of dawn. He could die. He could die right there. Let the enemy gun him down all he cared.

All the while, he was wondering how Shiro had felt the same way for him all that time. What a waste, all of this. A waste.

He knew what was coming and he prayed and prayed that this sleep would be the final one.

 

_For good this time, let it be… please._

_Give me peace, at last, there is none while Shiro is gone._

 


	8. Burning Down The Colosseum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that was a longer gap from updating last than originally planned, sorry about that!  
> Life happened and also the fact I wanted to keep up the pace for the last two chapters so I edited it all in one go. This particular chapter is extra long (an extra chapter in one, to be exact) so consider it as a bonus as a thank you for reading this far!  
> I also want to warn you that the "eventual smut" has finally found its way to this chapter, enjoy!

_Your happiness should not rely on someone else’s existence but hasn’t it been so, so far in my life?_

 

Keith’s eyes shot open in a flash with such acceleration that his vision blurred with muted white. The pressure in his arms had now lifted with such suddenness and with only the sense of a feather weighing him down that they felt limp and useless.  
  
Keith was weeping into nothing, just as much as he had felt like the nothing inside of him. His eyes were afflicted and raw, crusted with the built of sleep and drying tears, had it been that he was sleeping and tearing up for years.   
  
Looking down at his rough, heaps of rags, a form of a dirty and soiled with a makeshift bag stringed around his body. The sigh that was released from him was not one of a surprise but of tiresome and remorse. He was not one to filter his confusion anymore, had he not done this a hundred times already?   
  
He is now in Ancient Rome, _so what?_ This sick slideshow of one crazy time to the next had nothing on him now, but the deaths- oh, but Shiro’s deaths… It would just keep picking at him, chipping away the shield and defence he took years upon years to build, now hollow with war-torn holes, defenceless and merciless. For Shiro. He was helpless.  
  
While dusting himself off the ground, he hears one tremendous applause of a mixture of jeering and cheering coming from the teetering Colosseum that upsurge the landscape above him. The multitude of sounds flowed like coming tides, only broken from one disdain to another. What can he do but to sneakily settle himself in, confiding into his own curious self, allowing himself to be lead by the ruling fate that guided him to one relentless eradication to the next?   
  
He snuck into the soaring stalls and found a small biting seat that gripped everyone together tightly, as the coming waves again brought another outset of screams and joyous mirth. Everyone was too enticed with the show to see his ragged clothes clinging onto the frailness of his bruised skin where his ribs itch against cloth from his trimmed waist. Even Keith didn’t notice the drastic change of his whole body structure until much later.   
  
“What… the?”  
  
There were two specks in the centre, one man with what to seemed to be a fishing net and a trident taunting the other dot into vicious action, he only had a loincloth to cover his bare body but a large arm guard to protect himself from hefty attacks. The other opponent had a similar look but a large helmet had obscured the majority of his face but his eyes that were daunting and evil.   
  
There was obviously some history before Keith had got here, a longer fight even because what Keith had seen was horrific. The man with the greedy evil eyes mauled the other man in two, Keith had sworn he just saw the man die from sadistic entertainment but there it was, the tender slaps of his chest pulling harshly up and down.   
  
“How could he survive that?” Keith asked no one in particular.  
  
‘No one in particular’ happened to be a bearded man dressed in a long white tunic, with a gold crescent moon hugging nicely around his neck. His face had folds from age, his eyes sage and hollow. He didn’t look at Keith but it was as if his words were shouting through a cone at him only.  
  
“It’s a show for a reason. It would not be so much if one died so easily, no? They train and they train. Everyone wants that piece of freedom that is advertised with the job, especially the rags to riches type. All sounds delightful if you ask me.”  
  
He was laughing, but it was somewhere caught up between a mask of mystery, something Keith couldn’t quite catch what was behind, the humour was lost in the air between them.  
  
“Freedom?”

Keith didn’t quite understand, he didn’t know enough about Ancient Rome to begin to understand.   
  
This questionable lack of knowledge brought the man’s eyes finally down to Keith with bemusing realisation.  
  
Keith knew he was in for something and there was a mental defence mechanism that started to kick in.  
  
_Get ready, old man._  
  
“You’re a thief.”  
  
That. He didn’t expect.  
  
_“Excuse me?”_  
  
Keith wanted to bring his hands up and fight, what was this _rando_ imposing?  
  
“A beggar, a criminal-”   
  
The man continued indifferently, and Keith was ready to pounce but run all at once.  
  
“-No no no! I mean, it’s fine really. I saw you about, stealing from the rich, from us- actually we should have a talk, come with me.”  
  
“Why should I trust you old man, what if you turn me in or something?”  
  
The stranger looked utterly dumbfounded, and Keith’s pointed stare doubled him over.  
  
_Pure intentions, is that possible?_  
  
“Look. Fine. I’ll go but if something’s fishy, I’m leaving, no word against.”  
  
“If you must.”  
  
The man escorted him out of the arena once more and Keith could have sworn he heard the clashing of blades colliding skin, then hollow metal and skin again vibrate densely against the regurgitated screams.  
  
“I’m a Lanista.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
The man resigns, Keith must look utterly stupid.  
  
“A Lanista,” When he saw Keith still not getting it he sighed and continued, “- I look after gladiators. I collect such criminals like you, pick off the dirt off the streets and transform them into the beautiful, powerful and famous gladiators you just saw before you.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
Keith repeated still not biting. Feeling a little like the man was piling insult upon insult on him.  
  
“I would like to formally invite you to join in.”  
  
He waves his arm towards the direction of the screams.  
  
“I’ve seen you about, scraping for food, dealing more damage than good. Not so much of a humble life you have got there, Mister Keith Kogane.”  
  
“How’d you know my name?!”  
  
“Doesn’t matter, but for now, will you join?”  
  
“How can I trust someone that isn’t truthful to me from the beginning?”  
  
“All in good time, trust me you’d want to join.”  
  
“I doubt-”  
  
More screams, except for it was enough to set the rusty sand pounding. Levitating specks of dust in the area up with the beat of the excitement to then crumble down again. Feet were pounding against the stone steps in anticipation.  
  
Keith ran to see.   
  
The crowds were piqued, aroused and full of roaring spirit. Arms were flailing and things were thrown. Keith saw a figure standing on the opposite side of the arena, he was slowly being brought up from a hidden trap door.  
  
“Ah! The famous Gallus has arrived!”   
  
Keith ignored the old man’s announcement.   
  
A golden lion in the centre broke its own roars into the impenetrable crowds. The man took a few steps and it was clear as daylight that he was popular, real popular. His face struck against the imposing sunlight that doomed those in the fighting circle.  
  
“Shiro!”  
  
Keith ran to the gate he was at, bars were spiking up and down barricading Keith from meeting Shiro.   
  
He watched Shiro’s strides take action as he placed his helmet on his head, his body whipped into fierce flight as he danced with the lion. Large deadly claws against an ill-defined sword, caustic against the lion’s flourishing fur coat that was effulgent against the heat of the sizzling sun that brought down into the battle like a conceited limelight.   
  
Shiro was fearless, untamable but also very much in control. He knew all the moves and had the instincts of an animal so he became one with _the animal_. He fought literally tooth and nail against it and by god, he reigned victoriously. Who expected otherwise, not Keith.   
  
It was not long after the cheers had slowly simmered when Shiro’s figure came marching through the darkened gate beside his Keith.   
  
“Shiro!”  
  
Keith called to him once more. As soon as Shiro walked through, his tired worn out self, took charge, his shoulders slacken ever so slightly and his face limp and contorted but nevertheless a thrill of the fight still skittered between his facial expressions.   
  
When Keith caught up to him, the old man he had been speaking with, meandered about him, watching closely smiling and winking at Shiro, who by Keith’s own surprise, winked back. For some reason, Keith felt pissed off at that, was it because it felt like everyone in the world knew what was going on but him?  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Keith got Shiro’s attention back at him.  
  
“Another fan?”   
  
Shiro was playing with his words bitterly, he was tired and maybe the sight of Keith naturally gave him that distorted air about him. It had torn through Keith with such defeat, he had heard such a horrible tone from Shiro not much earlier but it still took its lasting effects on him.  
  
“No. No, not exactly.”  
  
Up close Keith could see Shiro’s body, red slashes hitherto across his torso and back that took the definition of his body. His arms were moulded with glistening sweat around his crafted muscles. Keith could not but help feel curiosity towards his choice of armour, one of Shiro’s arms was partially covered by a leather manica, while his leg had a metal greave for protection. He took a lot of damage for what he does, Keith scorned at the thought.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
He was cleaning himself up with a cloth and Keith smelt the waft of fresh blood and sweat rinse strongly in his nostrils.  
  
“You were good out there.”  
  
He didn’t accept the whole killing animals vibe but he didn’t want to sound off either. Shiro was a good fighter naturally so it wasn’t a complete lie.  
  
“Thanks.” Shiro didn’t look entertained by the compliment if anything his stare was skirting around as if bored, looking for a way out.  
  
“You ready to go, Shirogane?”  
  
That was the old man from earlier, Keith’s face contorted.  
  
“Yeah, yeah I’m all set.”  
  
The two walked away, bickering about the fight while Shiro distractedly rubbed against the fresh new slash that the lion so happily trademarked on his bicep as if swatting away a fly.  
  
The old man paused for a second at the exit and turns to look at Keith.  
  
“Promise me to at least think about it.”  
  
He meant about joining.  
  
“Sure, old man.”  
  
Not a little bit concerned about it all.

 

As it turns out, the old man was right, Keith didn’t really have any place to go. He spent days squatting for change to be poured (or more like flung miserably) in his direction and nights cradling his body inwards where the hunger caved in on itself.  
  
Keith was a fighter though he thought.  
  
_This isn’t the way I want to go, fuck that._  
  
The next morning poured with the hot juicy rays of the sun, not a cloud bespeckled the sky. He felt his limp limbs sore from lack of nutrition and proper movement, the fear that he would lose his good self-made him on the brink of a panic attack.  
  
He started to hang by the markets, cling deep and hidden in the shadows and when a poor sorry soul was close enough he trapped them in his web (unknowingly, of course) and stole their goods; Money, food, anything to get him by for the next day. He knew how to do it, he had done this before. Way before he got into the academy.   
  
Keith didn’t want to experience this again in his lifetime, who would? So, while he ate the tasteless bread and the juicy fruit that were instantly inflicted with flies dotting around its flesh, he considered how this was the worse time warp he had fell upon yet and he had to fix it quick.  
  
Raw burning memories of his rough childhood riddled their way to the front of his mind and he would do anything to erase them if he could.  
  
By evening, when the sky turned into a mix bruising hues of purple and burnt blues, he could smell the sun had taken its toll on him. He was starting to stink, and it was real bad. It was obvious he hadn’t bathed in a while and the sun’s stretch of long lasting burning days made him perspire more than usual.  
  
So, when everyone was waltzing away from the Roman baths near his little beggar’s spot that he found not so long ago, he found a way through the darkness to get himself in, unheard and alone. By this late ungodly hour, houses were absent from candlelight and sound and he was alone in the streets with the other sorry lot.   
  
Once inside of the courtyard, the water was quiescent and smooth, the sound one _drip drop_ at a time filled the air, along quiet beat to a pause than to another. It was serene and the dampening fog of heat had now lightened enough to take a deep fresh breath and Keith could feel his lungs breathe in and become cleansed.  
  
Keith unclothed himself and allowed the water to engulf his body to his collarbones where the surface decided to ripple around the coarse edges. He allowed his thoughts to wander freely as he shut his eyes, just like the water around him did and as did the sky expand around above him. Where his thoughts, of course, laid onto Shiro. The flash of his image from earlier scorched Keith’s mind. The way his arms flexed with menacing gestures as he swung his sword or how his body was tattooed with all the souvenirs of his battles. His skin tight around his muscles, trained through battle and broken through his warrior winning streaks.   
  
Keith sighed as he reminded himself of how Shiro used to smile with such liveliness as soon as he saw him, his teeth were the moon on a clear night, how he would touch him in unspoken ways his hips a seesaw, his mind a merry-go-round. Keith had his own hand tracing a thin invisible line born at the centre of his pecs to end in a small loop below his torso, where the water rushed up and down with a rhythmic slow beat as he felt his hips slightly buckle.   
  
And ah yes, the time when Shiro whispered into his ear, sweet nothings into unveiling confessions sending sweet crisp breaths down his chilling neck where stubble of hair was sprouting on end.   
  
This sent a cool rush down his bare body where the water didn’t touch. He felt the sensation point downwards where his lust was unfeasible and messy.  
  
Shiro in his mind had his strong hands full of cuts and the hardness of what fight after fight would bring, into Keith’s tender fingers, latching on, locking on. One hand in his own, falling into a smaller scale and one on his hip, where sparks flew and crystallised within his veins, spiking his brain with a euphoric heightened sentiment of lascivious sprouted and poured out new emotions. Keith felt the slow growth of his hand trailing naturally down to between the thick of his thighs where they made a small squeezing _pop_ , as the water collected and dispersed around his rough grasp.  
  
Shiro had a smile playing dirty around his lips that broke apart with a flash in Keith’s mind’s eye. He was planning something, and Keith liked it. It had made his breath catch and give way to the tide of what only sex could please. His breathing escalated fast up and down his throat, his teeth snagged at his lower lip as did Shiro’s in his mind. They tugged to Keith’s before snagging away into a fierce kiss, harshly inserting his tongue between Keith’s lips and their messy kisses broke a sigh in reality where Keith couldn’t hold back the feeling anymore. A rumbling groan struck through Keith’s diaphragm. He raked a hand through his hair slowly as he exhaled amid his sexual frustration and infatuation. The throbbing between his thighs was burning for attention.   
  
Shiro’s bare body entangled in between Keith’s, his hot breath rinsed with his own, he could almost feel all of Shiro touching him, everywhere, through the small rifts of his naked body.   
  
Keith was getting hard real quick, his teeth clenched down to his thumb as his imagination made him spiral. His other hand was curling roughly around his erection, touching himself lazily. His finger dancing a slow uncontrollable line up his shaft teasing himself to make a sigh creep out of him. His hand tensed once more as he imagined Shiro kissing him hotly, feeling his naked body up and wrap his hands around all the angles. His hand was moving rapidly, a rhythm that couldn’t be beaten by his daydreams. Shiro whispering in a slow hushed voice skipping beats and tight breaths-  
  
Keith moaned enthusiastically, wanting more. More than his own hand leaving ghostly trails on his body, but for Shiro to take charge, to bite him anywhere and everywhere. Where the kisses were messy with their clinging saliva connecting them together and Shiro wanting to see more and more of Keith, because he loved Keith and Keith loved Shiro, they would devour each other, wreak havoc with every waking touch.  
  
The water was now mingling with his own release. Mixing with the moonlight’s bright shine and reflection bathing down his glowing skin.  
  
But with the influx of his hormones that came round and now dying down, the sadness and frustration engulfed him.   
  
_Shiro, god, fuck you, fuck you… Why hurt me like this, again and again?_  
  
Keith knew that soon those lions and the other gladiators would catch up to him, he’s great but he can’t be that great, or maybe Keith didn’t want to believe that Shiro was one touch away from being deadly as a god.   
  
He wanted to get himself in this mess too if it means getting Shiro out of it before it was too late.

 

When the sun rose from the hills, colouring the pale foreground into the architecture’s usual pearly whites and shining marble. Keith found his way back to the Colosseum only this time he took a small detour to the training grounds to find the old man.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
The man in question was shouting commands and directions at two skinny men jabbing at each other’s openings.  
  
They must be new to the whole training thing like Keith, as soon as one jabbed the other yelped in full fury.  
  
“Get used to it, Novicius, if you want to survive!”  
  
He had his hands up in the air questioning God, before he noticed Keith looking at the scene, arms folded, then watching him intently behind his back.   
  
They sat on a nearby marble bench, Keith felt the heat that had been absorbed all day on his seat, lick flames at the back of his thighs.   
  
“What changed your mind?”  
  
“Just- I reminded myself of something, there was more to win here than to lose.”  
  
“Well said. Seeing you looking for scraps of food-” He sighs and looks down at his drying crinkled hands as if remembering his own days that had gone and passed in youth, another lifetime ago of hardship and sorrow. “It must be hard.”  
  
“It is but I always get by. It wasn’t really that, it was him.”  
  
Keith points to Shiro who had just come out of an opening, as a man holding all the strength in the world on his shoulders. Magnetic stares pulling towards his sunlit shining body. He looked godly. He was godly.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
The man looked amused, a hum floated out of him, a gust of love obvious as soon as it was admitted out of Keith as he pointed towards Shiro, who looked straight back at him.  
  
“He is idolised by all, you’re no exception?”   
  
He gets up with a crooked and pained sigh as Shiro was slowly walking towards them, deliberately absorbing the multitude of attention along with his destination.  
  
“Very well. I will see you at training tomorrow, bright and early when the sun has had its first few winks of daylight.”  
  
Keith nods and as the man turned, Shiro arrived, looking quizzical but stern. The man pats his shoulder affectionately while stroking his long white beard in knowing thought.  
  
“Oh and you can call me Sana Horatius.”  
  
He leaves within a breath and Keith is there feeling the lesser man as Shiro frowns down upon him. He was chiselled marble outlined by the shine of the day.  
  
“What were you two talking about?”  
  
“Nothing.”   
  
Keith didn’t break his death stare and soon Shiro looked away with whimsical laughter breathing through his teeth. He rushed his fingers through his whitened hair and Keith felt his heart backpedal. Keith slid his palms together with unease, rinsing away thought after thought before he himself shot up with a resolute inhale.  
  
“You here for something?”  
  
Keith stared down Shiro as much as he could, some sort of instinct shot out of him. To be seen and heard by him he had to show he had no fear. He didn’t know the reason behind it.  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“Why you here then?”  
  
Keith watched Shiro’s eyes deliberately dart all over Keith, down where his chest was partially bare, he had no shame. He shot then, right back up to Keith fiery eyes and just as fiery hot face, he grinned. _What a jerk._  
  
_Your jerk._ Keith corrected himself and stood straighter.  
  
“I’m curious…”  
  
“About?”  
  
“You.”  
  
Keith didn’t know if the rise in his blood pressure and the speed of his exhales escaping through his flaring nostrils were to do with his frustration or for his desire to trail down a slick finger over Shiro’s oil drenched bare chest-  
  
“I’m leaving.”  
  
He wanted to leave his thoughts too, he winced.  
  
“Wait…”  
  
Shiro grabbed Keith’s wrist gently with a tug and pull action until he was inches in front him and Keith could feel once more the old radiance of warmth that flowed out of Shiro.  
  
“What are you doing?!”  
  
“Getting your attention.”  
  
There was that smirk again, that cliché bad boy grin that made Keith’s insides want to puke but somersault all the same.  
  
“Well, you’re getting it.”  
  
Keith said only with half the spark.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Shiro suddenly rubbed small circles on the inside of Keith’s wrist. His heightened breathing? Yep, definitely to do with Shiro.   
  
“What’s your name?”  
  
“Keith.”  
  
He said crisply afraid he’d come out with an embarrassing squeal.   
  
“ _Keith_ … Won’t forget it.”   
  
Shiro drops his arm wistfully and walking backwards still smirking at him he slowly drifted away.

 

Needless to say, when Keith saw Shiro next he didn't know how to react, how to treat his old friend when he treated him like they were long lost lovers with a vendetta from the get go.  
  
The old man, or Sana as he was better known as, told Keith as he was getting tests from the Medici, a doctor, to spend the rest of the day watching the fights from the gates at the Colosseum to adjust to style of fights and to educate himself on the types of gladiators that fought. He didn’t even consider there to be rankings, though after some thought it would make sense. Shiro being on top of it all, of course.   
  
_He_ , Shiro, was fighting in the arena again and Keith could not take an eye off him even if he tried. His whole body was fixated on the other man’s warrior pose, toppling spins and rolls to dodge and the mighty sword stabbing in the other opponents.   
  
After three fights, all of which Shiro was victorious over and over, Keith and Shiro were once again reunited at the mouth of the gate.   
  
There was a moment Shiro was momentarily startled, “Why are you here?”  
  
Keith squints at him unsure if he was serious, did he not add up the fact he was at the training session the day before.  
  
He then shrugs it off. “Been picked to fight, I guess.”   
  
“You seem perky for someone who’s about to get their ass kicked, maybe kicked for good.”  
  
Shiro said almost bitterly and Keith was astounded with how this was the same guy he had his hands caressed gently the day before.   
  
“Maybe.” Keith runs a finger on his lower lip before it played into a smile. “But I got someone worth fighting for.”  
  
_Wow, tone it down, Keith before you make yourself cringe._  
  
This was the first time when Shiro’s outwardly surprised face turned into a small genuine beam.  
  
“Is that so?” He trails.  
  
He was about to walk away, having done his duty for the day, plus he was getting tired trying to read how Shiro feels about him.   
  
_Maybe this was a bad idea…_  
  
“Hey!”

He stops Keith before he was sweltering in the darkness that hid the exit.  
  
“What?”  
  
Keith winced a little at the abruptness of his tone.  
  
“Want to fight sometime?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Keith hissed and spun in confusion and amazement, what was he implying?  
  
Shiro’s smirk dropped when he realised.  
  
“Oh no no, I mean do you want to hang… I could help you with sparring and practice.”  
  
_Oh._  
  
Keith suddenly felt ashamed that he went into the jarring assumption so soon with the man he cared so much for. Would it always be like this?  
  
“Sure, if you can handle it.”

 

“Déjà vu.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“N-nothing.”  
  
Today was overcast, the greying clouds muffling whatever good shine the sun had brought into a silent nothingness down on earth.   
  
Keith was thinking how all this seemed a lot more similar of a scene then it should have been. There Shiro was with a multitude of weapons laid before them, he was telling Keith in fine detail what was what and what works with who and so forth. This was their first lesson together, except for it didn’t seem like it. Back, as in way back, pre-Kerberos, when Keith was starting out at the Academy and discovered the _amazing_ Shiro for the first time, Shiro had -astoundedly- went to see Keith and well one thing led to another and he was teaching Keith how to fight, just like now.   
  
So, of course, when they did spar for the first time, Keith just knew how Shiro worked, his next move, his mechanics, his fixations, his tics, the things he really loves….  
  
“Damn it!”   
  
Shiro was on the floor, Keith had done a little dirty work there but it was a mere repeat of one of their first fights together.  
  
“How did you learn to fight?”  
  
_From you._  
  
“A long lost friend doesn’t matter, what does matter is that I can fight. D’you think I’m better than you?”  
  
“Not quite.”  
  
Keith felt air beneath his feet where Shiro had pulled his leg under before he fell flat on the ground where Shiro rolled on top of him. Keith had himself by his elbows as he saw a drop of sweat fall from the tip of Shiro’s nose, he was smiling, he was enjoying this.  
  
“Wow, that was low.”  
  
“And what you did was any better?”  
  
They were both laughing as Keith shook his head at the ludicrousy of it all.  
  
There was a pause and the inches between them pulsated with a physical beat and as Keith was about to fall into a deep manoeuvring kiss, he felt the breeze brush against his face when Shiro spun off to sit beside him instead, panting and wiping off the sweat from his forehead.  
  
_Fuck… me._  
  
“So… What’s your story?”  
  
Keith tried to take his mind elsewhere, anywhere that didn’t make him want to moan out loud. _Embarrassing._  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“I mean, when I watch you, watch you fight I mean, you fight hard. What’s your backstory where's all this aggression coming from?”  
  
Shiro debates him, then falls back to watch the clouds that have now been inked with darker greyish complexion. There was a storm coming.   
  
Keith was patient, this was much like uprooting a splinter out of a lion’s paw. He remembered the first time Shiro had ever opened up to Keith. It was the first time when Keith really got into trouble, his anger had always given him first warnings and stern looks and more than few mouthing offs but this time he was almost out of the academy for good (obviously before he was actually kicked out because of Kerberos and Shiro).   
  
Shiro was there for him, had his back, in return, to fulfil their trip to the middle of the sand dunes on the outskirts of the academy’s grounds, Shiro opened up to Keith.

 

_“We’re quite similar you know, you and I.”_  
  
_“Yeah?”_  
  
_“Sure. We’ve both seen enough to scar, to scar for good, long lasting and tainting whatever good comes our way._  
  
_“There was a point when I was angry too, Keith, real angry. Just like you. I unleashed all that anger on things I cared about, people I cared for. Heck, it leads me nowhere, that’s what people told me, and of course they were right but you can’t control something that big that has been beating down on you for years, the sort that they created, the monster they unleashed on you and take no credit for. They don’t want to nurse a dying man they fought to destroy in the first place.”_  
  
_“Why they do it in the first place then, if they know it would be a hassle after?”_  
  
_“People secretly adore the cruelty they inhabit and inflict, it’s natural, I guess.”_  
  
_Shiro had a tasteless smile tainted on his face as he continued,_  
  
_“They did that to me, they rejected me, I was a good for nothing, no one wanted me, no one liked me. I was their scapegoat. They needed someone to pursue, someone to throw all their hatred on so they had someone to compare to, and knew on default they would always be better in comparison to, I was dirt and they were sand, glistening in the sun, while I was drizzled on in the rain._  
  
_“Then the shit storm came. I was young, twelve maybe. They still picked on me, enough to plan something big for such a small age.”_  
  
_“What did they do?”_  
  
_“They trapped me. Somehow they got me going with them, I think there was this boy, Henry, he was kind, he had shown me that same kindness that day and stupidly I bought it because I was young and innocent and expected the same back. They had me at the bottom of the field in the playground, circled me too, like a pack of wolves. That was when the throwing started.”_  
  
_“What?!”_  
  
_“They threw rocks, fruit, you name it. It smeared my jacket, my shirt, the shorts my mother handcrafted because we couldn’t buy more than one pair.”_  
  
_“Shiro…”_  
  
_“Teachers came by, too late of course. By then the majority of the kids were screaming off into the distance and my eyes were salted and dry with my own tears to see who was left. Did it matter anyway, in a way weren’t the teachers on their side?”_  
  
_“Jesus.”_  
  
_“Keith. Promise me you’ll find a way out, that anger of yours? It’ll only destroy you further, they want you to go all Jason on them, slash them with an axe or whatever because they want to unleash the monster they created but in the end, it would be you losing.”_  
  
_“Look at you with your retro horror flick references, glad you were actually watching the movie I thought you were just you kn-”_  
  
_“I’m serious, Keith.”_  
  
_“I know, I know, same. I promise I won’t let them win.”_

 

What Shiro said that day was the most Keith had gotten out of anyone. He opened up to him and in turn, Keith poured out to him again and again.   
  
“I was just a beggar like you, you know? Nothing special.”  
  
Shiro skirted his eyes away from both Keith and the sky and he jumped up, dusting off the dirt off his hands.   
  
“Let’s go, we got more training to do.”  
  
Keith nodded but for some gut feeling, he felt like Shiro was holding back on something.

 

It happened a lot. Keith grudgingly thought, how Shiro would reach out then pull away with wincing second thoughts last minute.  
  
Over time, their training seemed to be a lot more personal. Shiro even called the old man off saying Keith would be his prodigy of some sort.   
  
The thing is, fighting with Shiro was just like spilling secrets. Opening up to his vulnerabilities, shared techniques, the tics, his pitfalls, his weaknesses. Just not the past Keith wanted to know about.  
  
“You okay? You seem quiet today.”  
  
“Yeah, just thinking.”  
  
They were playing cards, it had just rained and they sat under the sheltered warmth of the patio on the outskirts fo the courtyard of the training grounds. Shiro was slouching on his side relaxing, while Keith had his back hunched over where he laid his arms over his knees.   
  
“That’s a lot of thinking.”  
  
Shiro’s eyebrow raised his hand of cards, he was tapping a finger on top of a card he was about to lay down.  
  
“Shiro…”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Can I- Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sounds a bit ominous.”  
  
“Well, you don’t make it easy.”  
  
“Okay, okay shoot.”  
  
Keith’s chest rises then falls and he places his hand of cards face down on the ground as he paid his full attention to Shiro.  
  
“Why won’t you tell me anything?”  
  
“But I do?”  
  
“I counter that.”  
  
“Keith.”  
  
_Pity. That’s pity, that definitely sounds like he’s looking down on me._  
  
“I tell you many things, I told you about that embarrassing battle I had with that man with the missing front teeth and leg or the the one about the weirdest animal I had ever see-”  
  
“No, Shiro, not about your battles but about your life, the days before, the stuff you do around training apart from playing cards.”  
  
“That doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Surely your life isn’t just the fight.”  
  
“Well, it is, Keith, okay?”  
  
There was a hushed pause. _When did we start fighting?_  
  
“Look, Keith, I don’t know how long you had been out on the streets before, but for me it was my whole life not knowing my family, not having enough food to last a day, scraping from one day to the next.”  
  
“Shi-”  
  
“No, let me finish.”   
  
Keith waved a hand, nonplussed.  
  
“When Sana picked me up, I was almost dead, Keith. There was nothing worse than that moment I felt limping around from hunger and constantly feeling like the failure that I was. This gave me such a huge privilege to-”  
  
“Become famous? Get rich?”  
  
“To live. Simply that. I had no luxury of that before.”  
  
At some point, the stars started to peel open and flourish in the darkened sky, the chill escaped and the men soon littered and scattered until there were none but Shiro and Keith looking longingly at one and another, words better left unspoken.   
  
There was something in the air that night, Keith knew it, Shiro knew it and he also knew and understood that Keith understood the expense he went through, without the words, trimming the fat into the core of their true emotions for one another.  
  
“You ready for the big fight tomorrow?”  
  
“Am I ever.” Shiro laughed away as if his life had not been on the line moments ago.

 

Today was the day, it was a big fight for Shiro, there would be two lions as a sort of starter for him before the main course. A true gladiator, just like Shiro, ready to prove there would only be room for one sheriff in town or in this case, one leading Gallus gladiator...   
  
“I’ll be fine.”  
  
Shiro was reassuring Keith that deaths were evidently rare in battle, well, rarer than Keith suspected but still, he didn’t believe it, how could they fight to such expense and not get killed?  
  
“Trust me, Keith, I’m good. Real good.”  
  
He had his hand rubbing Keith’s bare shoulder, he felt the flicker of hairs stuck up at the back of his neck and the chill spreading goosebumps all over his body.  
  
“I trust you, Shiro.”  
  
Shiro nods and smiles before he reformed himself into true hero stature and entered the arena, into his own bubble of cheering, gloating and screaming, and as always Keith watched on the sidelines.   
  
Keith noticed the new sheet of sweat that coated Shiro, and his front teeth biting down hard on his bottom lip to make blood dribble down his chin. It was a tough spectacular fight, proving Shiro that he was there about to meet his match. And when the lions were defeated and the buzz turned into a crescendo. It was then when the huge hunk of a being, a moving mountain dislodged from the earth it was contained in, rumbled the arena as he was lifted through the trap door on the ground, with his striking and somewhat terrifying looks.   
  
Shiro’s opponent was no one to mess with. His face was sliced, his arms were sliced and so was his chest, there was more tainted scarred skin than clear. A significant story was written between each of these scars, a deliberation to the body to tell his heroic tales.  
  
“You ready to lose it all?”   
  
The fire between the two was intense, the drawing of swords drew an inhale from the crowd whereupon they clashed deepening close to each other’s body.   
  
“Tired yet?”  
  
Shiro didn't respond, Keith noticed the absolute concentration of the fire that was lit in his eyes, in his lighting quick actions, his feet spreading his mass to topple the other slightly back, giving him time to scavenge for another opening.   
  
The sand danced about their feet as the two warriors circled each other like prey.  
  
And with a quick fleet, the ugly rock of a man drew his sword, angled at serious trajectories and Keith could hear the gasp escape Shiro again and again where metal met flesh.   
  
Shiro had to look, he had to flash his eyes down where the damage was made, it must have hurt.  
  
“SHIRO LOOK OUT!”  
  
Shiro looked at Keith, to his calling, disorientated from the quick flow of blood, unadjusted to such a scene but then it hit him.  
  
A quick snipe to the bridge of his nose, the blood filtering the air as he fell back and where the crowd went into hysterics.  
  
At some point, the Emperor called a win for the monster of a man and to let the human live.  
  
Shiro retreated back towards Keith at the gate, his hands smothering the blood that escaped from his tormented nose and the new slashes that looked dense on his skin.  
  
“Shiro…”  
  
He ignored him and went straight for the exit leaving Keith and the canny cheers that sounded earthly and ghostly ringing in his ears.

 

Keith wandered about until it ticked to midnight and the fireflies glowed and sprinkled their magic leading a trail for Keith to find Shiro once more.  
  
He was at the Roman baths, dipping a foot lightly into the pool of water where it shimmered in slow wistful circular motions. Shambles of silver moonlight drizzled upon him.  
  
His cut on the bridge of his nose had now stopped flowing and dried in the silver moon’s glow.   
Keith sighed and slowly padded towards him to plump down and nudge him slightly in the arm, where he stayed still.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Keith announced where it bounced to and fro from the columns and emptiness.  
  
“Better than ever.”  
  
Shiro sarcastically threw out and Keith flinched knowing he was to blame.  
  
He wanted to do anything, everything to make Shiro happy.  
  
Keith slowly reached up, automatically wanting to take his hand into his where he would rub his hand against his own face soothingly, but he didn’t. Shiro noticed his eyes skirting to where the hand was reaching towards and where it retracted.  
  
“I’m sorry, Shiro, it’s all my fault if I didn’t say anything, you’d well…”  
  
Keith looked towards his scar, their eyes met and Keith detached himself by looking at his reflection on the water’s surface instead.   
  
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
Shiro rubbed against his arm in a rather embarrassed manner.  
  
“I appreciate you trying _unguilt_ this guilt trip here, Shiro but let’s be real if I didn’t call out your name-”  
  
“It could have been my neck or eyes even.”  
  
Keith’s lips pursed.  
  
“Keith, it was my fault, I was distracted.”  
  
“You always seem so into the battle, though.”  
  
Shiro ripped out a low hushed nervous laughter and pinched the bridge of his nose before wincing at the pain the cut had caused. He forgot he had it already.  
  
“Yeah well I don’t know, today was different. For the first time in awhile, I thought of someone other than myself.”  
  
Keith drew an intake of breath.  
  
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”  
  
This was when Keith wanted to run away, it was a fleeting thought that crept around him like it was ready to pounce and take action. Was he afraid to have Shiro fall for him again when he had never stopped falling for him to begin with? Wasn’t that exactly the reason why he wasn’t too sure if he could do this all over again?  
  
But how could he not give in?  
  
To feel something other than the rush of pain and drought of happiness bring quake his existence?  
  
How could he turn away Shiro when that’s all he ever asked for.   
  
To be with him, to adore, to cherish, to be respected, to be loved the way he loves him.   
  
So when Shiro grasped Keith’s hand he earlier whisked away from fear, and when Shiro held it to his chest between, feeling the flutter of a breath take its pace, and he smiled ever so slightly as if timid by the idea of Keith’s unclear affection but brought with his thirst for loving him. Keith pressed his hand against the hard wall of Shiro’s chest, where his fingers spread its wings and felt the pulsing beat of his fluttering heart, fumbling for a pace rightfully justified for the situation. Keith could feel his own heart swell and dissolve, as his chest picked up the notion of adrenaline that had also circled the butterflies in his stomach.   
  
Their eyes had an unbreakable hold on each other.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Maybe he was asking himself more he was to Shiro, maybe that’s why Shiro kept dying because Keith was testing fate when he fell for him. Was he supposed to be with him or not?  
  
“Always.”  
  
It was then something special happened as if the words were a secret password to a hidden passage. A burst of fluttering fireflies drew deep into the circle of the two lovers. Keith watched the light of the flies dance into the gleaming glare in Shiro’s eyes.  
  
“They’re beautiful.”  
  
Keith wondered out loud harshly against the density of the serene surroundings and the cooling bite of the air that push a small breeze around them in circles and circles.  
  
“You’re beautiful.”   
  
Keith smiled and swept into a deep passionate kiss, ripping his tongue through the gap in Shiro’s lips, weakening his tight defence where his muscles lax under Keith’s restless touch. Shiro went slack as Keith bit down into his lower lip. His imagination enticed, It was as if stars were born through his touch.  
  
Their clothes dropped into a pile of rags, defeated and useless.  
Shiro lifted him up, not taking their locked lips off each other for a second. His arms flexed and Keith ran his palms up and down Shiro’s bicep to then linger at his pecs that were rising and falling hysterically.  
  
Shiro gently placed Keith down as they were both in the bath, where the water sprinkled and rained on them, and where the pace picked up faster.   
  
“Wait wait wait…”  
  
Keith pushed Shiro back slightly forcing him to let go.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
Keith ran his finger through his hair drenching them with the warmth of the water he bathed in. His hitched laughter was caught in his chest as he gurgled through his speeding breath.  
  
“Fuck Shiro. You have no idea how long I have waited for this, I don't want to rush it.”  
  
Shiro smiled and grasped at Keith’s neck as they bowed their heads together, foreheads with a singular touch, Keith closed his eyes and sighed melodically.   
  
Keith retracted slightly looking deeply into Shiro’s eyes, washing old memories away with new.  
  
He traced his finger gently along his scar that deepened on the bridge of Shiro’s nose.  
Keith drifted his hands towards the lace of thin ribbons that tainted his chest, years of the gladiator fighting in the arena, then he ran his fingers between the most dangerous of cuts, his lips.  
  
“But I want all of you, all of you now. Take me.”  
  
Shiro nodded before he bit deep into Keith’s neck making him croon. There was a sliver of kisses making its way down Keith’s spine. He then slowly prepared Keith’s opening with the width of his fingers, smoothly as could with the crude lubricant of water could go. Keith’s inhale grew sharp as he winced and then felt the flare. He bit his lip to contain himself. Shiro soon after lined his tip where it gradually pursued where his fingers left off. There was a hitch in Keith’s throat, a hiccup that caught him off guard. Ecstasy flowed with a rush freely through his veins as Shiro’s hand slowly made his way to Keith’s front, the gap between thighs, where Shiro’s hand halted once it found its destination before firmly gripping nicely around Keith’s erection, rippling sparks up Keith’s shaft, he felt the flow settle somewhere in the lower part of his stomach. Keith moaned through the vibration as their bodies moved back and forth, gripping Shiro’s hair as a lifeguard while he used the other hand to guide Shiro to the perfect rhythm. And as if it were that easy, they were in sync.   
  
“Shi- Shiro… fuck. I think-”  
  
Keith reached and sprang into oblivion. Climax felt like a million stars exploding inside him. Shiro kissed his shoulder gently for reassurance and support before he himself felt the blur of euphoria erupt within him, Keith felt his jolts stagger until a sudden halt.  
  
Keith turned to look at him once over, their legs entwined with one another beneath the disillusioned water’s surface, giving goosebumps to them both. Keith adjusted his posture slightly as he wanted to return the favour to Shiro the second time round. Before gripping Shiro, he slowly made a trail of kisses between the lines of his muscles on his chest, only then did he take him, picking up just enough to reel Shiro’s moans into the night once more. Erupt and fluent, calling for Keith’s name erratically. Yearning for more of Keith’s touch on his bare skin.  
  
_His callus blistered hands, his scars tattooed his body. He is beyond perfect, his imperfections made it so. He is broken beyond repair. He is everything I ever wanted._  
  
They say there as one, staring off into the starry sky, the fireflies droning in and out of their lights, hoping against hope that the night where they were together would never end.   
  
And as Keith felt his eyes flutter as he had Shiro’s arms wrapped around him as the water started to cool further, Shiro’s hushed voice broke the silence.  
  
“If I were to die tonight, I would teach the stars your name.”

_But Shiro, could you ever love me more than I love you?_

 

“You ready for your first big fight?”  
  
“Piece of cake.”  
  
Keith was in the training grounds doing last minute prep before going to the Colosseum for his first ever battle. He knew it was dangerous, he had watched Shiro fight a hundred times now but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been in ‘dangerous’ before, shouldn’t this be… easy?   
  
Well, that’s what he kept telling himself as he had tried to blanket the thought that he had not seen Shiro since the night before and since- well...   
  
The old man was gathering everything up, making sure Keith was really ready, he grunted here and there as he picked up all the equipment.  
  
“You sure you don’t know where Shiro is?”  
  
Sana looked up at him and dusts off his hands throwing out a fulfilling wheeze.  
  
“Look, there are a lot of battles going on today, he usually goes about town before he fights something as big as today, he’d be burning those nerves off, my boy.”  
  
“I guess.”  
  
Heck, it pissed him off more, because Shiro knew Keith had his first match today, and yet he had gone off, leaving him alone.  
  
It enraged him, bottled up all inside, he wanted to have one moment with Shiro that wasn’t spoilt, was that even possible?  
  
When they arrived, Keith felt very bare and light. He had very little armour due to his rank and his weapons were short, stout and unusual. He was known as a Scissor gladiator, one small blade in one hand and a weirdly curved blade in the other.  
  
Though…  
  
“Feels quite exhilarating.”  
  
“Good.”   
  
The crowds were beating the grounds, their feet strumming a war anthem, their hands yanking at the air, their screams in a flow, a tidal wave of support.   
  
“Who am I going against?”  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
_Guess not._  
  
Then the beats of a hollowed drum bellowed, and an ushering silence grasped and Keith was ready.  
  
“We would like to present our new Scissor gladiator, Keith Kogaaane.”  
  
There were the cheers again, ones that washed a flow of cold sweat down your back, Keith’s grin wrapped around his face, he felt crazy. He’s here about to battle someone for entertainment, it was ludicrous, but something, something took over him. Something sick riddled him, it was dangerous and dark and leapt at him when he wasn't watching. It was very uncharacteristic, he felt it. Keith felt the switch flick in him, he felt the pride take over and his moral compass subside. It can’t be that bad, I need to live, Shiro does it.  
  
But then the opponent was also introduced with another silence and the low of rumbling of the audience’s padded feet it drummed beats into Keith’s heart.  
  
“ANNND THE INFAMOUS TIBERIUS THE ARBELAS!”  
  
Did he have a second name?  
  
No.  
  
Did that somehow make him seem a little more terrifying? _Just a little._ Keith admitted.  
  
Keith watched Tiberius march carefully but calmly march towards Keith. They both watched the Emperor until it was time and they took a defensive stance in unison.   
  
“You scared, newbie?”  
  
“Me? No, never.”  
  
Tiberius growled a howl and yanked his dagger forward where it hit Keith’s steel tube that acted like a gauntlet as he struck his arm to defend his face.  
  
“You think you’re tough?”  
  
“Just a little.”  
  
His stare went red and his jaw clenched, again, he was ready for another aggressive swing.  
  
_He’s too angry to think strategically._   
  
Keith summed up with a smirk and jabbed a long thin slice with his curved blade at the side of his torso where he yelped and retreated a few paces back instinctively.   
  
Keith took this time to grasp as much air as he could, it so seemed he was holding onto it that whole time. It’s tough, a little tougher than he thought but he can get by.  
  
Tiberius also had time to re-strategise and more importantly, in the flash of Keith’s eyes, to calm down and recollect himself. These taunts won’t affect him as much as Keith wanted. He can’t rely on his retort alone.  
  
So it was time for offence.  
  
Tiberius and Keith paced around one another, watching each other’s next moves. Keith noted that despite the other man being only slightly larger in size he was extremely heavy on his feet, sluggish around his legs but swift with his arms.   
  
Keith made a movement, a distraction, hitting hard at the man’s neck, slicing quickly at his upper arms and below his stomach. Keith getting a few cuts of his own but it was enough for the man to bleed, to bleed and hurt and enough for Keith to make his move. He swiftly took his dagger out, using his curved blade to firstly slice and then when Tiberius wasn’t looking, jabbing his metal-encased arm hard into the core of his stomach enough to throw him back a few steps and enough to distract him for Keith to slide between his legs where he cut deep into back of his knees.  
  
“Fuck you fuckin-!”  
  
“-And that’s it!”   
  
The Emperor nods and speaks to someone near him, muttering enough for the guard to contort but look resolute, an order.   
  
“Kogane! I’m going to get you one day!”  
  
“You wish.”  
  
Keith muttered a little more than distracted.   
  
_What’s going on?_  
  
Keith flipped back his stare to the gate where the old man was at, he was talking to some guards, Keith watched as they slowly towed him to the Emperor.  
  
_This isn’t... that’s not right, is it?_  
  
They exchanged some sage words that Keith could not pick up on and then he turned, the old man looked directly towards Keith with a thinning smirk.   
  
_What?_  
  
“Keith won this round but we have a very special round up next. Tertiarius!”  
  
The crowd repeated, _Tertiarius! Tertiarius! Tertiarius!_  
  
“A second round?”  
  
Keith span around on his heels, the other gladiator has now towed away and there were cheers, uproars but this time it was chilling, they were prying the life out of him. Keith wondered if it always felt like that but he chose anything other than the obvious.  
  
“What’s going on?!”  
  
Keith shouts to Emperor, the old man and the crowd but all the latter did be scream back with excitement, their stares polluted with cloudy resolution. He was not told of this, he didn’t sign up for it.  
  
Before Keith was about to run, run away or scream. There was a sudden stillness to the air, an introduction within itself. The uncanny feeling of being surrounded by so many but was silenced and still, made Keith run cold.   
  
He turned around in time to see two guards dragging a struggling man with a dirty bag over his head to obscure his appearance, and by the looks of things to surprise the man himself.   
  
“What the fuck is going on, is this some kind of sick joke?”  
  
He attempted to pry out the men but with no luck.  
  
The men left and the man struggled to yank off the bag over his head in a rush of frustration.  
  
“A special battle is to take place, this goes against our usual rules, but I must say sir Sana Horatius had a marvellous idea that would only work for these two.”  
  
Keith shot daggers through the old man who gave a grim awakening smile, Keith felt bile attempting to pellet out his mouth.  
  
“Keith? Keith!”  
  
Keith turned around amazed just in time for Shiro to smother him in an undeniable and breathtaking hug, crushing his insides.  
  
“Shiro?”  
  
The man behind the bag was Shiro?  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“Beats me.”  
  
Then it all connected.  
  
“You didn’t purposely ignore me all day did you?”  
  
“No? No, Keith! I was out running, just to take my mind off this battle today and I was about to come back to watch your first battle but these guys took me from behind.”  
  
He wavered a hand about in a resentful manner towards where the two guards were moments before.  
  
“So you didn’t regret last night?”  
  
Keith was reluctant to expose his insecurities like that but he was strangled by his own emotions alone.  
  
“Keith, Keith, I would never.”  
  
He grabbed hold of his hands, squeezed a little and for an entire moment, however small, Keith felt alone with Shiro. Safe and sound.  
  
A loud cough interrupted them.  
  
“We will now get on with the show!”  
  
Both Keith and Shiro look up, their bubble popped and reality became crystal clear as it came smashing down.  
  
“Keith Kogane. Takashi Shirogane. In a very special event, you two will be fighting.”  
  
“Wh-what?!”  
  
“He’s a Novicius, a beginner- he just started out, how is that fair?!”  
  
“-To the death!’  
  
The Emperor finalised and the two went utterly silent.  
  
_No…_  
  
“No.”  
  
Shiro’s definitive refusal shut the whole audience down. Everyone skirted awkward looks back to the Emperor and the old man and then back down to Keith and Shiro. This was not the show they were expecting.  
  
This was when the Emperor shot up from his seat, furious and distraught, hands rolled up into hefty fists, he was ready to fight the air, to fight for his own justice, for the life and will of entertainment.   
  
“What did you say, boy?”  
  
This was when Keith piped up, stepped forwards and stood tall beside Shiro.  
  
“We’re not playing your sick games anymore.”  
  
He was sending waves of fury their way but…  
  
“Did you hear that? _Not playing our games?_ ”   
  
His hands outstretched towards everyone, then quite ridiculous to the moment he laughed, enriched with the earthly bellowing sense that brought on the flowing waves into the crowd as it caught on. Keith was reminded of a creepy music box made of laughs.  
  
“Very well, we shall consider.” He claps his hands once, amazingly pausing the laughs midway.  
  
He starts discussing his next movements to his fellow bench of unlikable foes.  
  
Keith anchored onto the small hope he had left.  
  
Turning to Shiro, wavering onto one word to the next, knowing there wasn’t much time left.  
  
An involuted thought caught him off guard, “They can’t do this right? This isn’t the usual set up? Why would they do this? There is bound to be a loophole, I can imagine there would be some sort of court to do trials in regards to this, some laws?”  
  
He kept blabbering on and on hoping to poke a hole in the Emperor’s plan somewhere.  
  
But Shiro's eyes were pained.  
  
“I don’t know, Keith, I don’t know but whatever happens, I would never hurt you, you know that we can figure this out.”   
  
He grasped for his hand again and Keith attempted once more to stand tall, gripping tightly to Shiro for support knowing if he let go of his hand he’d break down. He’d break.  
  
“We have made our decision.”  
  
“Oh? Out with it.” Shiro bellows.  
  
“Execute him!”  
  
Keith followed the trail of the Emperor’s finger leading towards Shiro in a perverse, comedic slow motion.  
  
“What?!”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Let go of him!”  
  
The guards had already wrapped collectively around Shiro and Keith, where their hands fell away in between them.  
  
“I SAID LET GO!”  
  
“Keith…”  
  
“No, no why the fuck does this keep happening, fuck you all! Fuck this!”  
  
“Keith…”  
  
“I don’t want to live if he dies, I can’t live when Shiro is gone, LET GO!”  
  
“Keith!”  
  
Keith stops, his whimper drizzled out into groans as he looked towards Shiro.  
  
With force stronger than his own, Keith yanks away his arms from the guards and lunges himself towards Shiro’s where the latter grasps at his elbows to steady him.   
  
Shiro mumbles softly, pressed to his cheek, _“I’ll find you, I’ll find you again next time.”_  
  
He heaves in a breath and continues so quiet Keith almost lost it in the exuberance of the crowd, “We'll always find each other.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s time! Kill him!”  
  
“No, no! What do you mean?!”  
  
“Goodbye, Keith!”  
  
Keith was getting dragged back again, his force now weak and sagging.  
  
“SHIRO, ANSWER ME!”  
  
“Cut off his head!”  
  
“NOOOO!”

 

Nothing.  
  
There was nothing.  
  
He was cascading through the temperaments of time itself.

And a voice scratching the surface...

_Where there was love, came destruction._


	9. Still Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, hello.  
> Well done for making it this far! It's the end already.  
> I just wanted to thank everyone who read, left kudos and commented, means a lot!  
> As said before I'm planning to make a spin-off of this series, based in the 50s, hope you're interested.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. Forgive me old English teacher, you're going to hate me for writing an ending like this.

_“We'll always find each other.”_

It was different this time.

All of it.

 

There was a dream...

  
_Shiro had seen Keith in the thicket of the sand dunes in the distance, battling the air he breathed, with his tattered molten sword. Angry fight songs whistled through his teeth in frustration as Keith whisked his arm this way and that way. Shiro was watching Keith wipe away the budding sweat that glistened at his forehead with his arm and with that, Keith noticed him, Shiro, a huge hunk of muscular rock, chiselled into irregular shapes by God himself. His shirt was ripped in half and blood was smeared like an old caveman’s tale across his torso._  
_He was in danger and Keith dropped everything to save him._

There was such rekindling unity with slumber and with the awareness of being awake that for a whole moment entirely, Keith was unsure of anything. Much like one’s sudden awakening from a haunting sleepwalk, stood ashamed and a fraud amongst the awake and the living, them standing, watching, knowing everything the unconscious had done. Keith felt naked under the limelight.

But in reality, there was staring, one long held lingering touch to another before it disconnected and left Keith alone for good. He was alone. He felt it.  
  
He stood there in the middle of a corridor in the academy, trembling but not cold.  
  
His eyes were dark, hollow, only coloured by watercolour masses that wanted to obscure one nightmarish dream to the next, as if protecting him from instant shock, but all of a sudden rinsed with the room’s light.  
  
His legs began to give way as he rushed back to the wall to hold himself up. He wavered on the spot as he tried to clear his vision and mind. Keith’s stomach rumbled with motion sickness and he couldn’t think about anything but the hollowness and agony crashing in his skull.  
  
Keith’s muscles felt like jelly, a convulsion in each nerve keeping him from standing up straight.  
He recalled everything before the prolonged darkness, he had no idea for how long it had been out.  
  
He remembered what Shiro had said just before everything went black, it was peculiar.

_I’ll find you, I’ll Academy you again next time.”_

It didn’t make any sense. Shiro didn’t know he was reincarnated time after time in history.  
  
_Did he?_  
  
And what is up with being at the academy now?  
  
Was it all for nothing, not real? All made up? All those times Shiro had plummeted to death and Keith went back in time again and again. Was Voltron even real?  
  
_“Keith!”_  
  
Shiro was running down the stairs nearby, a big cheeky grin expanding on his face. His hair flicked raven black, his face clear as the expanding horizon outside and his arms unscarred and untouched.  
  
Different was right.  
  
Keith was awestruck.  
  
When he got close enough, Shiro tugged Keith tight by slinging an arm around his shoulders and nudging a breathy laughter against his reddening ear.  
  
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Come on, let’s eat.”

They sat in the buzzing cafeteria, Keith felt like he was tugged underwater, pulled down further and further while he watched the disarray of people clambering over the water’s distorted surface, laughing, distancing themselves from his sinking self.  
  
The two ate and chat, well it was mostly Shiro who spoke. Keith was mesmerised by him, how happy he looked over the littlest things, he’d just perk up. His smile paled out the rest of the world and his laugh was enriched with pure joy as a child’s. It was as if all of his troubles and woes had floated away to never return.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Shiro interrupted Keith’s thoughts, a wash of concern dosing him. It took a moment for Keith to get back to his senses and realise that Shiro was talking to him.  
  
“Oh yeah… Just taking it all in.”  
  
Shiro ran a hand down his mouth watching him, biting down on his lip in contemplation.  
  
“What?”  
  
Keith threw out a nervous laughter as he asked.  
  
“We should take a walk.”

  
  
They sat down on the hills just outside of the academy, beautiful and burning red dimming in the outdoor light if only Keith wasn’t reminded so much of his dream.  
  
Or the very uncanny memory just lingering under the surface.  
  
“We’ve done this before, haven’t we? Like yeah, we went here a lot but I mean just everything about this time. Like it’s all happened before...”  
  
“Really?” Shiro looked perplexed but Keith had a strange feeling.  
  
“Yeah….”  
  
There was a look in Shiro’s eye that put Keith off to explaining his weird sensation further.  
  
“Keith…”  
  
Shiro was close, his fingers fanned out next to his own and their arms slightly brushed against each other like a small summer’s breeze.  
  
“Shiro…?”  
  
“I’m…. I’m sure you’ve heard already.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
Shiro sighed, his breathing shook and his eyes roamed around the landscape as he smiled sadly taking the atmosphere in. A farewell glance.  
  
“I’m leaving. The Kerberos mission that was talked about all over the academy… They requested me, Keith, specifically. I-It means a lot to go but… so do you. Which is why I couldn't, tell you until now… I just couldn't bring myself to.”  
  
_That._ Keith thought with a radiating pulse. He remembers very clearly.  
  
He has definitely been through this conversation all before.  
  
Keith felt that even from the beginning he knew it was off that he wasn’t home just yet but he was prying on the very idea that everything else was all made up. A crazy big hallucination before Shiro left Keith for the first time making him leave him again and again soon after before Shiro was tormented and in turn, Keith heartbroken.  
  
Keith loves Voltron but he loves Shiro even more.  
  
“You’re leaving?”  
  
How many times had he left him already?  
  
“Only for a little while.” _Tomorrow. It will be tomorrow, just like it was before. Too quick to brush off like it would never happen in time._  
  
Shiro’s smile looked meek but he was so sure of himself. A twinkle in his eye. This would be quick, he thinks. He thinks he could fulfil his dream and come back to his secret love and all in life is complete.

_But you don’t understand Shiro, how long a little while really is._

  
  
There was the ghostly moans of the overhead pipes echoing throughout the academy at 6 am, the live electricity loose and free, sparks battling out with the pipes that circulated above Keith and Shiro as the two stood face to face at Keith’s dorm threshold.  
  
Had Keith wanted the knocking on his door bright and early to be left unanswered maybe just maybe biting into the curious thought that everything would change, Shiro would change his mind and stay and they could forget about it all. Keith would be with Shiro, he wouldn’t have to go back home, to his real time because this time everything would be right, everything would be perfect a  
  
But then why didn't he do just that? What made him buckle and jolt towards the door as soon as he heard the first rattle of knuckles against steel? Flying to see face to face to Shiro while his hair was still muffled and he was still in loose in his boxers.  
  
It was living with the truth, knowing and feeling Voltron would always be needed. Not just between the paladins but the universe. His selfish needs beside many lives at stake meant nothing. He missed all of it, he missed saving people, exploring new planets, being with his friends, old and new and had he not loved piloting his lion beside Shiro’s?  
  
But to put Shiro through that torture again…  
  
Shiro was clean and constructed, he was all made up and the stark contrast gave Keith a fruitful laughter. Shiro the perfect one. _His_ perfect one.  
  
Shiro beamed, he had a small gift wrapped in his hands, he passed along to Keith.  
  
“Wow, you’re like a cheesy boyfriend.”  
  
_Like_. They both smirked at the ironic touch of that statement.  
  
They weren’t dating.  
  
They had their moments back then…  
  
Closer than two friends, not quite lovers.  
  
Passionate affection, quick glances of lust.  
  
But before they could experience to answer their many questions, Shiro left.  
  
And then they never had the chance to.  
  
It would be an understatement to say that it was the best day Keith had in a long time.  
  
Knowing everything he knows now, this time round he had this second chance handed to him to relive the best moments he had alone with Shiro, but this time more passionately. And by that, he meant opening up at last to his outstanding his affections for Shiro.  
  
“You’re...Wow.”  
  
Shiro suddenly remarked later on when early evening arrived and they had spent the whole day inside Keith room. It now glowered purple from the dying sun. Shiro had his arm lazily around Keith’s shoulder as they watched some old reruns on TV, though it wasn’t the TV they were really watching. Keith was flirting a little more than usual and Shiro caught on.  
  
“Wow? I like that reaction.”  
  
Keith mocked.  
  
They had only a few hours left together, Keith reminded himself urgently and although he did the most he could with the time he had with Shiro, waves of laughter still felt he wasted it all.  
  
It was not enough, it’s never enough.  
  
And as Keith thought again and again how afraid he is to lose Shiro once more, he let it out.  
  
One final plea.  
  
“Shiro. Don’t go.”  
  
Keith pressed into him, a surprising kiss that enveloped the two pressing lips into one.  
  
“I can’t stand to see you go again.”  
  
Shiro holds Keith, a little taken aback, “Again?”  
  
Keith just shakes his head. _You wouldn’t understand._  
  
He gently makes a trail of kisses onto Shiro’s collarbone before nuzzling into it, afraid to let go, to be far from this, to lose it all.  
  
When his touch would soon just be a forgotten memory.  
  
Shiro kisses the crown of Keith’s head passionately.  
  
“Didn’t think you saw me like this.”  
  
Shiro mumbled.  
  
Keith looked up at him, surprised breaking away slightly in defence.

“Is that a problem?”  
  
Shiro was almost alarmed, “Oh no.” Before hooking Keith’s chin with his thumb and finger, “Me too.”  
  
He whispers as he swoops in for a kill.  
  
A kiss as passionate as any other, stolen by time alone. The time Academy did not have the luxury to have.  
  
Their kisses were rushed, thinned with the tingling breath against their skin, their hushed fastened hearts touching each other’s chests. It was as many days of held onto touches came working into one long lasting embrace. How long did the two wait for such a thing to happen? How would they dismiss the unavoidable of Shiro’s departure?  
  
Shiro picked Keith up and tossed him to the bed, his hips created earthquakes within Keith's body as they moved into him, gripping the edge of mercy, reeling in and unwinding. Keith allowed Shiro to manipulate his soul, play with his mind.  
  
Undoing Keith’s jeans, Shiro planted kisses up Keith’s naked leg before sucking harshly at the tenderness of his inner thigh. And Keith was instantly infatuated. He was a Glutton, he was Lust, and he was greedy for all of it. He wanted more. He wanted to be tormented more.  
  
And there they were. Beauty brandishing beauty. The two, Time itself wished to forget but in all its defeat gave them one last kiss.  
  
Keith pulled Shiro close to him and soon enough they rolled flat on the bed’s top panting from the heated sensation of love and the sweltering air that melted between the two.  
  
“I have to go soon.”  
  
Keith closed his eyes wishing it all away, “Stay a little, then go.”  
  
Shiro nodded, how could he not?  
  
He caresses Keith’s cheek that lit up red as he softly spoke, “Nothing will change all the things that you make me feel about you."  
  
Before he rolled over and his steady breaths slowly withdrew to heavier tones and just when Keith knew Shiro was in between reality and those of dreams, before the full temperament of sleep, he whispers into Shiro’s ear as lightly as he could.  
  
“Shiro, I love you... and always will.”

  
  
A few hours had passed, Keith had slept through the alarm they put on which meant…  
  
Keith looked around panicking before feeling something had stuck at the palm of his hand as he sat up, a sticky note.

_I’ll be back for you soon, Keith, trust me, I’ll come back for you. - S_

Keith ran, he ran because he didn’t know how long, how possibly long it could have been since Shiro left. How long since he missed Shiro’s departure for the second time. How long ‘til he’d see him again to kiss him once more. 

The wing where everyone would have said their farewells was empty, completely and utterly empty.  
  
Just one casual student here and there before curfew, readying their way to bed.  
  
“No…”

 

Hours passed, then days turned into weeks flying into months. Until love became a chronic disease, incurable and life threatening.  
  
_Until I was his nothing and he was my everything._  
  
Keith was consumed by the light of love. Possessed by disastrous heartache.  
  
Lessons at first were meagre, he had remembered everything, all the little questions and remarks the teachers gave off. It all became superficial. An old tape recording stuck between the seconds as it was paused in time.  
  
“Hey… hey, bad hair cut!”  
  
“Bad hair cut? Is that the best you got?”  
  
They all finished lessons for the day, it was far too long since Shiro had left for the mission and Keith felt close to unbearable that was completely unshakable to wear off. It was all he could think about, all that moved his legs from this way to another.  
  
Keith spun around on his heels, a little more than irritated he wanted to do anything just to get back under his covers and hug Shiro’s uniform tightly against his chest and breathe in what he had left of him.  
  
_Lance._  
  
“I say it’s great considering how accurate it is!”  
  
“Lance, what do you want?”

Keith started rubbing his eyes. Tired. When was the last time he slept more than a couple of hours at night?  
  
“Am I boring you, huh? What’s up with you in class these days anyway?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“You’re a know it all! I mean you were always that goody-two-shoes type but now? You’re there looking suave as ever and still get shit right! Seriously you could go about trashing the place and still be the teacher’s pet.”  
  
“Your point?”  
  
“It pisses me off!”  
  
“Oh right.”  
  
Keith started to laugh, God, he felt so exhausted.  
  
“You used to see me as a competitor or something, huh I remember that now...”  
  
Nowadays was different, Keith and Lance well, they’re on a much better wavelength with one another.  
  
“What do you mean ‘used to’?! I’m your rival, Keith! You better watch out for me.” He smirks before leaving.  
  
Keith couldn’t help but feel his shoulders shudder as they slacked in defeat.  
  
God did he miss it all.  
  
How long has it been since he was with the other Paladins, how long since he was in Red, riding through the galaxy, the exhilaration of seeing a million stars shoot pass around him when the time arises to get out of the castle and fight.  
  
What he missed the most was looking through the windshield above the control panel and seeing the Black Lion and the pilot inside beside him, he had never felt such a reassurance and comfort in his life. If anything went heads up for him, there was Shiro to save the day right there with him.

 

It was an ordinary day, where lessons went forth, no stopping them, life goes on with or without Keith’s reluctance to participate. The sun dimmed but shined in the sky and the usual chatter radiated the Academy only this time was it prematurely heightened so early in the day.  
  
Keith was burnt out. His eyelids were hard to budge, grudgingly trying to hold themselves tightly shut. His body felt sluggish and qualmish and he had been eating roughly.  
  
Maybe it was worse than he thought.  
  
Maybe it had gotten that far already...  
  
Seeing the one he cared for the most in the world and to relive the same long ass days that led up to said person to be on a mission, it was painstakingly taking a toll, a toll Keith could not afford.  
  
Through the busy hallways, bodies bumping into other bodies, sweltering into one large mass. Every hit irritated Keith more with a small short growl under his breath that followed.  
  
The chimes of the intercom glowered over the whistling crowds’ chatter.  
  
“May I have your attention please for this very important announcement.”  
  
There was still a lot of chatter, but it suddenly ushered low to a vibration of sound.  
  
Keith abruptly stopped in his tracks.  
  
Someone hit hard on his side but he didn’t budge.  
  
“I have some terrible news to announce…”  
  
There was the scratching sound of paper shifting on a wooden surface.  
  
“...The crew en route to the Kerberos Mission…”  
  
The distant chattered raised with curious suspicion, Keith remained positively quiet and still.  
  
“...They are MIA. I am so sorry to those that had known-” Keith’s ears deafened, “-and also finally…”  
  
_Don’t say it._  
  
_Not again._  
  
_I don’t want to hear it._  
  
_Please make it stop._  
  
“Takashi Shirogane, all were our finest officers here in the academy. I know it’s early to hear such bad news, I would li-”  
  
Keith stopped listening, there was the same drowning sound muting his ears as it did the first time he heard the news. The same sensation of wave after wave after wave of seesawing nausea unbalanced in his insides. He staggered backwards into the lockers, tugging tightly at a lock that hung so surely.  
  
A few muttering groups skirted looks, whispered ugly tales on what could have really been between Keith Kogane and Takashi Shirogane.

_Breathe…_

_Breathe…  
_

That wasn’t the problem, he was breathing too much, too fast, his muscles trembled under his own weight as if it couldn’t hold him together anymore, and his head was light and fuzzy he wanted to do anything to collapse and not wake up.  
  
“Um, are you okay?”  
  
He didn’t know who said it, a girl, his eyes were tight shut, he had one hand gripping the sliding lockers behind him and the other hiding his face, darkening his sight.  
  
The universe had no mercy on Keith's feelings after all, not even after everything he had been through already.  
  
“Hey! Leave him alone!”  
  
“I’m just trying to hel-”  
  
“Well, you’re not, okay?”  
  
Keith was aware of the new presence, a little awareness to the conversation but it felt like he was below water again, everything was dotted with distortion, even his hearing. Fading in and fading out. There was suddenly a gush of the wind and a quietness to the air, but his own heaving breath and the steady of another’s kept him preoccupied.  
  
The late bell went off, Keith vaguely remembering missing it the first time too.  
  
“You okay, man?”  
  
Keith opened his eyes to the bright artificial lights that had a hum, a flicker, a deadly glow of drowning hope, open to see Lance pitifully looking down at him.  
  
“Why’d you care?’  
  
“Alright yeah, dude, we’re not on the best of terms, and I kind of hate you but I’m not that big of a jerk. I know you were close to Shiro, man, real close.”  
  
Keith looked away, feeling a rushing blush cover his face.  
  
“I…”  
  
“It doesn’t matter but you don’t deserve the prying eyes of others when you’re going through some shit. I know a little about that.”  
  
Lance helped him up and Keith watched him intently. Did he ever mention about that before?  
  
“What happened?” Keith asked all serious and because he had to.  
  
Lance shook it off and smiled.  
  
“It’s all about you today, Keith.”

  
  
A little while later Keith suddenly felt his loneliness devour him whole at lunch. He never really cared that no one ate with him at lunch but hearing the news, even knowing what happened after, it still felt utterly despairing and lonely. Everyone watched but no one came over.  
  
“Hey, what you all staring?!”  
  
Keith looked up surprised to see Lance again, about to sit opposite him, shouting at the surrounding crowds in the cafeteria that all gave Keith dirty looks.  
  
Lance nodded to Keith as he sat down and Keith nodded back as he continued to eat his sandwich. A mutual acknowledgement. _He’s got my back._

 

Although Keith wanted to be the better person, better than he was the first time round, he still somehow allowed his anger take a full swing at the worst of times.  
  
In class. In front of everyone.  
  
_Fate is fate_. He guessed.  
  
It was a specially hot day. Sweat bathed Keith was surviving on one meal, a couple of hours of sleep that raked his mind empty and his stomach raw but with the addition of sweltering irritation and no remorse.  
  
The subject somehow got to the Kerberos Mission in class, despite it had been a very long time since the bad news was unleashed. Wasn’t it all old news to everyone by now?  
  
Keith had his fists trembling on his lap. They called _him_ names, they called Shiro terrible names and joked about him being MIA.  
  
“More like KIA, ammiright?”  
  
And another wave of laughter.  
  
They all loved him once but now he was gone they called him conceited, too perfect, all up himself, he couldn't have succeeded that well without help, who was he sucking off to get that far-  
  
“SHUT THE FUCK UP! I FUCKING MEAN IT, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”  
  
Silence.  
  
Drawing stares all at Keith alone at the back beside the window.  
  
Then as if it was all a prophecy supposed to happen, the boy who started it all, marched up towards him a nasty snarl lashed at his lips. He pushed Keith back again, and a few more times, taunting him.  
  
“Why? Why should I?”  
  
He slammed Keith to the wall and there was a harsh whip of conspiring around the room.  
  
“Were you fucking him?”  
  
Silence and Keith’s fists were white hot.  
  
“Oh fuck me, you were!”  
  
The boy rules out a sick laughter, a harsh tinned chime.  
  
“You were his little fuckboy.”  
  
“Shut u-”  
  
“What are you going to do? Fuck me too?”  
  
Needless to say, Keith didn't need to be told twice. First time round? He punched the guy once maybe twice, this time round? He beat the kid to a pulp before the teacher had to rip him off.  
  
He had been expelled once again.

 

Keith sped down the dizzying desert dunes, leaving heavy wisps of dusty sand in his wake.  
  
He headed towards the hut he spent all his time grieving over Shiro once before. Where the Paladins had their first unofficial meeting.  
  
As he rushed in, full of frustration, exhaustion and hate towards the boy, the whole class, everyone, but mostly towards himself, towards Shiro who left him.  
  
He paused at the threshold. The sandy dust sauntered everywhere and Keith heaved out a heavy sigh remembering all the long heavy days he had spent there and will spend further, all alone with his broken thoughts and whispering die hard grief for a man that is dead not through his presence but through memories and thought.  
  
Keith spent all day alone there, in the shack, full of his thoughts not helping but deepening a slashing knife in his cuts, cruising for more pain.  
  
_I don’t want to spend the days like this all over again. I know more now than I did before. Maybe this time I can speed up the process and get Shiro back before… before he-_  
  
He didn’t need to think it out loud but it hurt anyway.  
  
_Before Shiro gets hurt and scarred forever._  
  
He wished the stars rained upon him in a great dazzling pool of white, and wipe him away from this planet for good.

 

It took Keith a few more days in the sweltering hut keeping himself occupied with planning his mission to save Shiro and it had all to do with finding the Blue Lion in the cave. Knowing now that Voltron is real, all he needed to do now was get the team back together and well, you know the rest.  
  
Keith packed a backpack, put his hood up to obscure himself when he’d arrive, and rode his motorbike back towards the academy.  
  
He planned all this out, planted a note in Lance’s backpack when the hallways were crowded with students so he was hidden and made his way to the rooftop to wait for Lance’s arrival.  
  
Some of Keith believed he wouldn’t come.  
  
Six turned into seven and then into eight…  
  
Keith was about to go, he was by the door when Lance made him jump by forcefully pushing the door open into him.  
  
“Oh!”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“You’re late.”  
  
“Well, it ain’t easy to sneak about and go into the _forbidden_ rooftop when you’re still a student here, bad cut.”  
  
“Bad cut?”  
  
“Your nickname.”  
  
He smirks mocking him.  
  
“You’re really terrible at them.”  
  
Lance’s smirk turned into a pout.  
  
Keith returns to leaning against the railing overlooking the glorious expansive view, the ever-changing colours of the sky as the sun was setting, all hazy with purples and oranges.  
  
After a while, Lance whistled low and leant his back on the railing beside him.  
  
“So what’s up, troublemaker?”  
  
“I need your help.”  
  
“Okaaaay… Care to elaborate?”  
  
Keith chews on his lip in an internal debate.  
  
He’s going to sound crazy.  
  
“I need your help to get Shiro back.”  
  
Lance squints at him, probably wondering if he was okay.  
  
_Called it._  
  
“Dude, don’t know what you’re on about, loved that guy, he was a true hero but he’s gone for good, buddy.  
  
He laid a heavy hand grasping his shoulder and neck in condolence.  
  
Something in his word broke Keith, maybe it was the truth he knew secretly all along but shoved it to the side with his famous stubbornness.  
  
Keith closed his eyes and allowed the fading light bruise his sight.  
  
“There’s something I need to show you.”  
  
Keith looks to him and Lance raises an eyebrow as if to say, _I’m listening._

  
  
“I have to admit…. This wasn’t what I had in mind.”  
  
Keith helped Lance sneak out after hours for Keith's treasure hunt as it were. There were some issues, to begin with, with Lance’s commitment towards the endless waves of sand itching his body to the deep hollowing cavern where the Blue Lion laid, except…  
  
“It should be here, I swear! _Fuck…_ ”  
  
“Language, Keithy boy!”  
  
Lance mocks a wagging finger at him making Keith roll his eyes while pacing around the empty cavern looking for the giant Blue Lion. Maybe it turned small?  
  
_No…_  
  
_Quit being ridiculous._  
  
“Um, what are we looking for again?”  
  
Keith abruptly stops his frantic search to look at Lance.  
  
“Your lion. We’re looking for your lion, to get the crew together, form Voltron and save Shiro.”  
  
“Right… Look, man, I know we haven’t seen eye to eye but if you need someone to talk to, I know you’ve been through a lot with Shiro gone-”  
  
“No! I’m fine, Lance.”  
  
“-I’m just saying you were out here alone in the hot blazing desert for a long time, alone with your grief I just-”  
  
“Lance, shut up! I’m fine. Seriously. I’m telling the truth.”  
  
There was a huge silence when Keith abruptly breaks down to the ground shrouding himself inwards and Lance putting his arm around him as he wept silently, feeling ashamed and useless all at once.  
  
“We were always supposed to find each other, we always did…. Always.”  
  
“I know, I know…”  
  
Except, Keith suspected he didn’t.

 

A long time was spent in Keith’s desert hut once more, determination and motivation now left to rot, Keith spent a lot of time pacing around at night when he wasn’t screaming through his nightmares. The days weren’t much better, he’d just lay in bed, wondering if the energy would ever come rolling back to him or when it finally did for however small of the time, he’d ride his bike hours on end, when the gas ran out and he was forced to go back into civilisation just to waste himself again.  
  
He counted the days, scratching marks beside his bed like he was imprisoned. He felt like he was. Captured and trapped in his own mind and heart. Soul left to deteriorate.  
  
So, was he ready when he knew the day, the very special day was to come real soon?  
  
He knew the exact date and time Shiro would be crashing forth, down back to Keith. It was the only thing that kept him going. Kept him staying alive.  
  
Keith had his bike ready, he properly cleaned up how to act even, bathed, dressed, cut his own hair back to its usual length where all his lost time he had allowed it to grow long down his back.  
  
But some of him still didn’t feel ready. It was as if some of him died when Shiro left.  
  
_It should be now, God, Shiro, please..._  
  
Keith waited on a hill watching the horizon, the sky clear from a twinkling sight.  
  
_Please…_  
  
A wish come true. But as expected.  
  
_There it is!_  
  
Shiro crashing down with the ship.  
  
Keith ran, he sprinted the fastest that he could.  
  
Still feeling lethargic, the giddiness rode over him with the adrenaline taking the steering wheel.  
  
_Finally…finally!_  
  
But Keith halts a little too soon. Skidding in the sand as it raised profusely into puffs around his ankles.  
  
Something doesn’t seem right.  
  
Shiro was brought out with two guards.  
  
Keith almost screamed his name, but no, this isn’t right. This wasn’t what happened.  
  
But Shiro saw Keith, he saw him, and he smiled so brightly when he did. His face tired and aged now smiling for the first time in a long time.  
  
_“Keith…”_  
  
It was faint but it was enough, Keith felt his feet pedalling forwards towards the man he had lost but now called his name, but there were people, loads of them, pacing out of the ship as if they were lost townspeople.  
  
This is impossible.  
  
Keith knew that but they all came out nevertheless, slowly but surely obscuring Shiro from Keith.  
  
“Hey! Hey, cut it! Get out of the way!”  
  
No good. Keith ran through the crowd searching for him, people pushing back and forth breaking any sense of direction.  
  
_This doesn’t make sense!_  
  
But Keith found something… metal… a bionic hand!  
  
“Shiro? Is that you?”  
  
“Keith! Yes! Yes, it’s me!”  
  
Shiro cries, wiggling his fingers frantically and Keith took it, anchoring onto it with his life.  
  
“Shiro…”  
  
He starts tearing up, trying to fight his words through the crack in his throat.  
  
“Keith, I remember you now, I remember all of it.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I-”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Keith was forcefully turned around by an old man, he was shaking Keith’s shoulders.  
  
“Get up!”  
  
“What?!”  
  
“Keith?”  
  
“Shiro, I’m still here!”  
  
“GET UP!”  
  
“No, ge-”  
  
Keith felt his whole body shake and jump in itself like when you’re falling in a dream only waking yourself up.  
  
Except for that’s exactly what happened.  
  
“-Thought you were gone for good.”  
  
_I know that voice somewhere…_  
  
Keith squints at his new surroundings. _Okay, this is stranger than usual, and that’s saying something._  
  
A light blue old alien was hovering over him, he was the voice in his dream. He had a weird ominous makeshift gas mask. Where he exhaled the two oval shaped balloon looking features on each side of the product expanded, he looked a little like a fish.  
  
“Wha-?”  
  
“Oh! You probably have a lot of questions, my dear boy you were poisoned! Dream spores to be exact.”  
  
“Wh-”  
  
Keith exhaled shakily, giving up on talking, feeling now he had a mask of his own, though one you’d find with an oxygen canteen. He tapped the tubes around him to get his message across.  
  
“Well, we found you here all alone, your giant lion there flew over to our city and brought us here! You’re from Voltron! Amazing!”  
  
Keith grunted.

“Sorry, basically we’re on the outskirts of a very poisonous vegetation, a little like a forest you may know but in the middle of a desert. They give out dangerous dream spores in the air, put you into a mini coma as it were.” He said matter-of-factly.  
  
“No one comes here without proper masks, but I guess you wouldn’t know, seeming as you crashed landed.” He laughs hesitantly.  
  
“Oh! And we’re scavengers by the way”, holding onto the sling of his weapon proudly and swaying an arm at the small crowd that littered about Keith on the cavern’s floor, some of them waved nervously.  
  
Keith closed his eyes for a few long moments trying to grasp the situation. His breathing was loud and obnoxious from the tubes and he was riddled with some sort of medication.  
  
He suddenly shot his eyes opens, breathing frantically.  
  
“What? What is it?!”  
  
The scavenger grasped for air as if to summon the necessary action.  
  
“Someone give this boy a gas mask!”  
  
One of the others hastily passed an extra one over and the man helped Keith with his mask and continued to help him sit up but Keith pushed himself up until he was fully standing.  
  
“You need to rest!”  
  
Keith shook his head urgently.  
  
“I need to find my friend, and I need your help.”  
  
Though all the scavengers were flabbergast and amazed they flowed with uneven nods.  
  
Keith jetpacks around to boost his speed, though he felt himself skeeter side to side still adjusting to reality, he kept going full force without pause, he urgently needed to find Shiro.  
  
“Look!” One of the scavengers pointed to a large dark irregular shape in the distance.  
  
“The Black Lion!” Keith exclaims.  
  
They got close enough and Keith tries to persuade the lion to take them to Shiro.  
  
“Please, you’re the only one who would know where he is, we need to save him, please!”  
  
Keith begged and for a long time, the lion wouldn’t budge until…  
  
“The eyes lit up!”  
  
Keith looked up to see for himself and couldn’t help but smile slightly.  
  
“Thank you... thank you!”  
  
He piloted them all to Shiro with an amazing ease, he was excited about this new fact but he had to find Shiro. Crazy new facts can be sorted out later.  
  
“There!”  
  
The black lion darted down into a crater and Keith stumbled out of the mouth finding Shiro in a heap on the side.  
  
Keith paused, something had stopped him, the sickening feeling that it was too late, he was so stupid, why couldn’t he wake up sooner?  
  
One of the scavengers gingerly got up and checked his breathing, after a long hesitant pause they looked towards Keith with a grim look, and a shook of the head.  
  
Keith couldn’t believe it all, he just couldn't.  
  
Shiro is just there before him. Keith finally found him for good but…  
  
Just the galaxy's touch beyond his reach.  
  
He ran and skidded to sit next to Shiro’s slumped body, checking for himself. Placing his ear to Shiro’s heart.  
  
There was a gasp from the small evasive crowd that lingered behind him. Though to Keith, it felt like more of a vibration, sense, than a sound, a ricochet of thought that bounced to and fro from his eardrums, where the blood rushed and flooded, engulfing his mind with one windswept blur, but a flicker of his erratic breathing was heard. In. Out. In. Out. And the unquenchable fright as he heard _It. Ba-dump._ That was a heartbeat, an unmistakable thud. Shiro's heartbeat. Low and murmuring but there all the same.  
  
“Keith...”  
  
He looked up and Shiro was wincing, Keith had put a mask on him as soon as he could.  
  
“Shiro, I’m here.”  
  
Shiro smiles and Keith smiles back in relief.  
  
After a few crazy treatments that both Keith and Shiro were amazed to see, beyond the usual science they were aware of. The scavenger crew took them through the night market to grab them food and new clothes and a place to stay for the night.  
  
There was a lot of chatter, the stalls acted as flytraps for potential customers, their ambient warm glow of lights bringing in the attraction and the hefty enthusiastic voices of the sellers kept them there for the sale.  
  
Keith couldn’t help but feel a flutter in his heart, through all disorientation, the area itself felt surreal and dreamlike, a Liminal Space.He was floating between the crowds, watching as each small stall was stuck in a world of their own. Odd fish in bags hung from the top of signs, the food was freshly cooked and stewed and clothes were sauntered here and there as far as the eye could see.  
  
It was a wondrous sight.  
  
“You two wait here while I get you something to eat.”  
  
“Thank you so much.”  
  
Shiro smiled warmly to the scavenger that first helped out Keith before he straddled back into the glowing warmth of the crowds.  
  
Keith and Shiro were left on the sandy darkened beach. There was a campfire with long large logs decorating its sides. They were alone and somehow excluded from the brighter light and the hustling crowds.  
  
Keith looked at Shiro and Shiro at Keith, who shrugged in silence before sitting closely on one of the logs, staring at the spittle of ash that threw itself out of the fire at the centre.  
  
“Well, this is strange.”  
  
“You don’t say.”  
  
Keith didn’t know what to think. Okay, so what? All of that was a dream, a deep longing dream from a deeply rooted coma, thanks to some weird ass sleeping spores? And he's just supposed to get up and pretend everything's okay? Fine and fucking dandy?  
  
“I had a weird dream.”  
  
“Same.”  
  
Keith looked up at him as soon as he spoke, trying to read him. But his eyes were captured in the firelight, absorbed and forlorn.  
  
Shiro started to fiddle with his fingers, something playing on his mind made him nervous.  
  
“You were there.”  
  
“You were in mine too.”  
  
Shiro looked up then, stared into Keith’s saddened glossy eyes.  
  
“I remember it all now, Keith. I wasn’t- wasn’t…”  
  
“You weren’t lucid.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
Both Keith and Shiro turned in surprise as an elderly lady hobbled from the thick of the market to the opposite side of the fireplace.  
  
“I mean I was but at the end…”  
  
Shiro trailed not sure what to think of the stranger yet.  
  
“Shiro… I was lucid in mine too, the whole time, I was at different times in history and I had to see you di-” Keith’s voice cracked and he looked to the ground. “I had to watch you die… over and over and over.” He said in a low tone. The rush of pain still hurting.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Shiro surprised Keith, he picked up Keith’s hand in reassurance and Keith looked into his warm eyes feeling everything that he had for Shiro since the first time they had met. It felt like a very long time ago.  
  
He chewed on the pinching thought: _you were never mine, to begin with._  
  
“I know.”  
  
Shiro repeated.  
  
“You forgot me...” Keith opened up, voicing his insecurities.  
  
Shiro looked troubled and heaved a heavy sigh,  
  
"Nothing can make me truly forget you, Keith."  
  
He nudged his forehead against Keith and suddenly he felt like he could finally relax.  
  
“I’m sorry, I really am. I remember everything now, the way I met you for the first time and we hated each other.”  
  
Shiro laughed as he continued and it was heavenly against the hush of the night.  
  
“You were a jock.”  
  
Keith pointed out, Shiro rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment as he laughed even more.  
  
“Yeah, I was.”  
  
Keith was amazed how Shiro’s dream correlated with his own just like that. It wasn't exactly a normal thing. None of it was, though.  
  
There was a pause, a trailing of Shiro’s laugh until it mixed with the background chatter of the crowd behind them and the whispering tides of the ocean.  
  
“How can this be?”  
  
Keith asked the air not expecting an answer.  
  
He got one anyway from the elderly lady, she was listening in the whole time.  
  
“I heard about these before, since I was very young, a lore from the sleeping spores on the outskirts of these lands. Almost like a fairy tale, full of heavenly romance but disputable sadness…”  
  
She croaked and smiles lightly at the treasured memory.  
  
“You two had a linked cognitive dream.” She pauses and slowly gets up to close in on them as if to see them better.  
  
“You two must be very close.”  
  
She winks at the two before she disappears once more into the night market.  
  
Crickets grew louder but it was all serene and peaceful drawing the two lovers even closer.  
  
“Do you think that's true? Doesn't it sound, I don't know? Crazy?”  
  
“Hm… well, Keith, we have seen a lot of crazy.”  
  
Keith still had some nerves and anxieties about the whole thing. Was that why… with the black lion, he could pilot it?  
  
“Do you really remember it all?”  
  
Keith asks still in disbelief.  
  
Shiro suddenly becomes playful, a fruitful look in his eye, and in a slow churn, “Maybe need a few refreshers for some parts.”  
  
And Keith starts to play along.  
  
He picks up Shiro’s hand and holds it in his, spinning circles with his thumb, “like this?”  
  
“Hmm, that definitely happened a few times,” Shiro replies with a flirtatious smirk riddling his lips.  
  
“What about this?”  
  
Keith began to kiss his neck softly, Shiro laughs with a gentle sigh.  
  
“Oh, that I remember very clearly.”  
  
And Keith smiles at the cut of the line of Shiro’s jaw as he goes in for the kill.  
  
“And this?”  
  
He looks at Shiro’s eyes before kissing him intently on his lips.  
  
Shiro only breaks away for a second to say, “That… I will never forget.”  
  
They kiss to bring in all the memories to life and Keith felt his head swim in gold and his heart leaping over the moon above all over again.  
  
Shiro breaks away once more, leaving Keith falling a little forwards expecting more.  
  
“Oh and Keith?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
Keith smiles devilishly. _Hurry up, Shiro._  
  
“Do you remember when we were in bed, laying side by side before I was going to leave for the Kerberos mission-” Shiro rolls his eyes, “-For the second time?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Well, I love you too, Keith and always will.”  
  
Keith smiles surprised by the fact Shiro heard those three the pipes words before falling asleep.  
  
“No matter what?”  
  
“No matter what.”  
  
Shiro said resolutely before falling back into his lips. Keith smiled in between the kiss of a lifetime.

  
  
_It felt like someone pulled away from my heart, tugged at the strings and held onto it so tightly. They serenaded to it as they crushed it whole. “I am in love!” He sings into my heart, “you are mine now!” He sings some more. It was hypnosis, an order I could not sway._  
_“I am in love too!” I sing back. “You are also mine now!”_


End file.
